


Cowboy Raava

by ReneeMontoya



Series: Astraea [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, Murder Mystery, Trans Characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:26:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 189,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3552563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReneeMontoya/pseuds/ReneeMontoya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War rages throughout the galaxy as Kuvira the Great Uniter continues her devastating assault on the United Republic in an attempt to rebuild the Earth’s shattered empire following the death of Queen Hou-Ting at the hands of Zaheer. Korra, a notorious bounty hunter, is on the trail of Zaheer when she’s shot down by imperial forces on Si Wong and placed under arrest on trumped up charges. In prison, Korra almost immediately falls for her cellmate, the rebel fighter, Asami Sato. With only her wits and trademark penchant for violence, Korra must survive prison fights, horrible food, terrible living conditions, cruel guards, and unbearable sexual tension.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Try to imagine the summary in bright yellow letters flying off into space to a triumphant John Williams score. Or in the voice of the announcer dude from the beginning of each episode of LoK. Or better yet, you could picture the announcer guy reading a Star Wars-esque title crawl so you get the best of both worlds. 
> 
> When you've finished torturing yourself reading this, you can read my Mako/Wu fic that's set in this AU! It's called 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Earth Empire' and I will probably definitely keep pestering you to read it so you might as well stop resisting and read it!

Korra’s cuffs were chafing. The cold metal of her restraints bit into her flesh mercilessly no matter which way she moved her hands. She wondered bitterly whether they had been designed that way.

Biting her lip and ignoring the pain, she strained against the manacles as she was marched down the corridor. Part of her knew it was no use, even without this damn concussion there was no way she’d ever be able to break the hardened metal of the handcuffs. That didn’t stop her trying though.

She only stopped when blood began to trickle down her hands, hot and wet.

Korra gritted her teeth. At least they’d taken the gag off her when they’d docked. The guards had quickly gotten tired of her constant shouting and swearing on the shuttle and she had tried biting off one of the guards’ ears when she’d been arrested so she couldn’t really blame them for it.

“In here,” one of the guards ordered, shoving her through an open door.

“Hey!” Korra yelled. “Asshole!” She stumbled through the doorway and tripped on the chains around her ankles.

Korra picked herself up and looked around. The room was as harshly lit as the rest of the prison satellite. The flickering electric lights in the ceiling were bright enough to worsen Korra’s headache and make her feel sick in the pit of her stomach but they just seemed to make the shadows even darker and the stained metallic walls even bleaker. Everywhere she looked was the same tarnished metal, slick with condensation and flecked with rust and scraps of faded paint.

While the guards filed in behind her, Korra strained her neck and looked out of the small, dirty window in the far wall. She could just about make out the platypus-bear constellation through the layers of grease that covered the glass. The cluster of stars was spinning slowly and for a moment Korra wondered whether her concussion was worse than she’d thought. She rolled her eyes when she realised it was the space station that was spinning and not the stars. That’s why she wasn’t floating. The centrifugal force generated by the spinning was giving the illusion of gravity inside the prison. Korra felt stupid for not having noticed the change when she’d left the zero gravity of the shuttle.

A door slid open behind her and the chains around her feet clanged as Korra tried to drop into a fighting stance. The guards jumped to attention as a small, slightly overweight man waddled in and sat behind the desk that was set in the corner. His green uniform was perfectly pressed and the epilates on his shoulders marked him as a senior officer in the Earth Empire army. Korra guessed he was probably some kind of war hero who, faced with the daunting prospect of retirement, had decided instead to become warden of this backwater women’s prison.

Korra noticed that he wasn’t wearing the emergency cable harness that the other guards wore on their backs in case the centrifuge failed. The thought of him being smashed into pulp in zero gravity made Korra smile.

He spread a stack of files across the desk and folded his hands in front of him. He looked up at Korra over his spectacles.

“Now,” he said in a voice that made Korra cringe, “shall we begin?”

“You can skip it.” Korra said wearily. The guards tensed and she heard one or two of them actually gasp. She guessed not many people stood up to this wanker. “I’ve been incarcerated before. I know what you’re gonna say. ‘Don’t make trouble. Keep your head down. Follow the rules. You’ll know what the rules are when you break them. Beware of the lesbians.’” The man behind the desk frowned and sat back in his seat. “I won’t cause any trouble, sir. I want to be here about as much as you do.”

The warden creased his brows at Korra, coughed, and adjusted his glasses. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead and his sagging cheeks made him look like a steamed dumpling.

“Can we get rid of these?” he said to one of the guards, gesturing at Korra’s restraints. “You won’t do anything silly, will you?” he asked in that oily voice, smiling at Korra as the cuffs were being unlocked.

Korra did her best innocent face and shook her head, smiling sweetly. “No, sir.”

When the cuffs were off, she breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed her sore wrists, still smiling charmingly.

Just as the uniformed dumpling opened his mouth to speak, Korra grabbed the nearest guard by the wrist and spun around. She smiled devilishly as she felt the bones in his arm snap like kindling. Moving with a speed that belied her weariness and numerous injuries, Korra leapt at the next bewildered guard. She rammed her elbow into his face, teeth and blood arcing through the air.

She was stepping over his unconscious body before anyone realised what was happening. The room was suddenly filled with screams and yells of confusion as the guards sprang into action. Korra dodged an armoured fist and head butted a guard in the face.

The warden let out a squeal like a frightened farm animal being dragged to the slaughter house. Korra wiped a splatter of blood off her cheek with the back of her hand and glared at him. He staggered backwards, fumbling desperately for the gun in his holster. Korra lunged at the warden, her hands outstretched, ready to throttle him. The desk toppled over, pinning him to the wall.

Korra felt a bolt of white hot pain shoot through her shoulder as her fingers closed around the squirming man’s thick neck. She shuddered as the guard without teeth shot another dart into her back. The room began to spin slightly. She winced as she was dragged off the overturned desk by her hair. Her fingers were still clawing at the warden’s slippery flesh. She managed to twist free of the vicelike grasp the guard had on her hair and clambered to her feet.

She stood there, her fists clenched, breathing raggedly, rocking unsteadily on her feet as the tranquiliser coursed through her veins. One of the braver guards stepped forwards, her sidearm aimed at Korra’s chest. Korra lunged at her but missed and the floor rushed up to smack her in the face. She looked up, her eyes blurring in and out of focus, as the warden climbed out from behind his desk. He was rubbing the raw scratches on his throat and his face was red from both anger and fright. Korra met his furious glare and grinned at him.

The last thing she saw before everything turned black and she lost consciousness was the sole of his boot crashing down towards her face.

By the time she came to, she’d been dragged to her knees and her arms had been pinned behind her. Blood was streaming out of her nose and down her neck and three of the five guards had broken bones, one of them was missing teeth, and two of them were lying unconscious on the floor.

The warden straightened his uniform, his hands shaking with nervous energy.

“You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?” he snarled at her.

“Oh, you can bet on it!” Korra laughed groggily, spitting blood over his boots.

The guards hauled Korra out into the corridor, a trickle of thick wine-dark blood following them out.

Korra wasn’t sure why she’d started that fight. There had been absolutely no way she could have won it but that hadn’t been the first unwinnable fight Korra had gotten herself into and it most certainly would not be the last one. She didn’t know what she’d been trying to achieve. Maybe she just wanted to prove that they weren’t going to be able to break her.

Before she could banish them, shattered and disjointed memories of her fight with Zaheer flashed through her mind. Her breathing became strained and shallow. Something deep inside her wondered whether maybe she’d already been broken.

For not the first time that day she found herself wishing she could talk to Raava.

She must have passed out again because she suddenly found herself in a humid, white-tiled room. The acrid stench of chlorine stung her nose and made her eyes water. The guards shepherded her into the middle of the room and threw her onto the floor. They backed away cautiously as she tried to stagger to her feet.

“Take your clothes off!” a guard ordered, his voice strained and nasally from his broken nose.

“You gonna make me squat and cough too? You x-rayed me on the shuttle.”

“Take your god damn clotheth off or I thwear I will fucking tranquilithe you again!” the toothless guard lisped.

“You could at least buy me a drink first,” Korra muttered, her split lip complaining with every excruciating syllable.

One of the guards drew a short, serrated knife out of her boot. Korra tried to crawl away along the slippery floor but her head was still swimming from the drugs and the beating. The guard pinned Korra to the floor with a knee in the small of her back. Korra felt the cold metal of the blade on her skin as her blood-stained clothes were ripped off her. She squirmed desperately to escape only to have her face slammed into the floor. Korra ground her teeth furiously, her fingernails clawing at the greasy tiles.

Korra yelled as she was dragged to her feet by her hair and thrown across the room. She wrapped her arms around her chest and crossed her legs to hide her nakedness. She snarled at the guards, baring her teeth and daring them to touch her.

She jumped in surprise as the pipes above her rattled noisily and a sudden blast of water drenched her, almost knocking her off her feet. She spluttered and gasped as the scorching stream of water forced its way up her nose and into her multitude of cuts and grazes.

The jet of water eventually trickled to a halt. Korra rubbed her stinging eyes and coughed up lungfuls of water that tasted of pesticides, rust, and the faint, lingering taste of ammonia that all recycled water had. Her dark hair was plastered over her face and the blood from her broken nose was mixing with the water that was pooling at her feet.

The relentless heat from the shower wore off quickly and she soon began shivering uncontrollably. She flinched and coughed as a cloud of delousing powder enveloped her. Through her sodden hair and the burning in her eyes she saw an orderly walk up to her. She held her hands out, expecting a towel only to have the familiar bite of the cuffs snap shut around her wrists.

Korra tried to whip her hands away but before she could, the cuffs were clamped tight around her wrists and the chains were being wrapped around her ankles by a young orderly. She grabbed his hair in her cuffed hands and jerked her knee up. She caught the boy full in the face, sending him flying across the damp floor. She heard the buzzing of stun guns powering up and hung her head in surrender and unclenched her fists. A pile of clothes was shoved into her arms and she was ushered out of the room, still naked and dripping wet.

She was frogmarched through the prison, shivering and hiding behind her hair. Korra could hear angry shouting getting louder, echoing down the long metal corridors. It was cold comfort, but Korra was glad that this was a women’s prison. It was bad enough that she had to put up with the lingering glances and lewd jokes from the handful of guards that they passed.

They soon came to a heavy metal door that looked like it was designed to stand up to a blast from a spirit bomb. Her cuffs were chafing again. She shifted the bundle of clothes in her arms, almost dropping them. The door finally opened and the dull monotonous rhythm of walking took her mind off the pain in her wrists.

They were on a gantry high over the floor of the prison. Korra was immediately hit by the oppressive heat and the deafening noise. Below them, a melee of fists and batons was drawing a huge crowd of prisoners in bright orange jumpsuits egging on the brawlers. A handful of guards were desperately trying to hold back the pressing tide of onlookers and herd them to their cells.

Korra smiled slightly to herself as the fight broke up and the bloodied women were dragged off each other.

She’d fit right in here.

Everything went quiet as they made their way down the stairs from the gantry down onto the prison floor. Heads turned and watched Korra being marched to a cell. Korra ground her teeth as a high pitched wolf whistle rung out from somewhere behind her.

“Nice ass!” someone yelled. Others joined in and soon the whole block was alive with people yelling at her, shouting and whistling and laughing.

Korra ignored them and dug her fingernails into her palms until she drew blood.

The cell the guards threw her into was at the far end of the block, furthest away from the guard tower that loomed over them. Korra noticed that it was also furthest away from the only exits. Her feet got caught in the chains around her ankles and she fell through the crackling laser-field that sealed off the cell and landed on her face.

Korra untangled herself and sat up. She tried to feel her bruised lip but forgot her hands were still cuffed and hit herself in the face.

“Hey, asshole!” Korra growled, shaking her bound hands at the guards as they leered at her through the pulsating energy field. “You just gonna leave these on? How the hell am I supposed to get dressed?”

“Not my problem,” the guard who’d been on the receiving end of Korra’s emergency dental work sneered.

“Fucking pricks!” Korra yelled as they left.

Korra curled up on the cold, hard floor of the cell next to her bed and groaned.

“Umm, hey?” a soft voice whispered from the deep shadows of the cell.

Korra nearly pissed herself in fright and recoiled in panic. A tall, long legged woman slid off the bed on the other wall and tiptoed towards Korra.

“Spirits!” Korra sighed, her heartbeat slowly returning to normal. “I- I didn’t see you.”

She knelt down next to Korra and put a firm, comforting hand on her arm and smiled. The weak, yellow light from the laser-field at the mouth of the cell glinted off her shimmering emerald eyes.

“You are very naked,” she said, her eyes holding Korra captivated.

“Am I? I hadn’t noticed,” Korra said. Her voice was edged with sarcasm but she smiled warmly at the woman she guessed was her cellmate.

The woman with the magical green eyes got to her feet, whipped a blanket off her bed and draped it over Korra’s shoulders.

“Thanks,” Korra smiled up at her.

She put a finger up signally to Korra to stay where she was and went over to the opening of the cell. She stood as close to the crackling wall of energy as she could, wisps of her hair flying away, suddenly wild and untamed from the static.

“Hey! Douche face!” she yelled raucously. “Yeah, you!”

A startled guard edged closer, fear plastered over his face. He had a kind face, Korra thought. He didn’t have the military look that the rest of the guards had. His hair was messy, not cropped short at the sides like the rest of the guards and he looked uncomfortable in the tight uniform and body armour.

“Y- yes?” he gulped.

“Get those fucking cuffs off her, you fucking piss-stain piece of shit!”

“I- I don’t know if …” he stuttered, looking worriedly over his shoulder.

“Did I fucking stutter?!” she hissed through the pulsating barrier

The guard looked around nervously before quickly disabling the field and slipping a key to her.

Korra breathed a sigh of relief as the cuffs came off and her cellmate passed the chains and key to the nervously sweating guard. With a swipe of his ID card, the energy barrier roared back into place. When he’d gone, Korra got to her feet and her new friend sat on her bunk, crossed her legs and smiled up at Korra.

“Asami. Asami Sato,” she said, holding out her hand as if the two had just met at a society ball in one of the Republic’s more exclusive hotels.

“Korra,” she smiled back, brushing a damp strand of hair out of her face but ignoring Asami’s outstretched hand. “You’ve got a real potty mouth, Sato, you know that?”

Asami’s musical laugh rung out through the cramped cell and for a minute Korra forgot how much her head was hurting.

Korra suddenly realised that she’d been staring and that she was still stark naked. She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and blushed slightly.

“Oh, sorry,” Asami gasped, averting her eyes. “You probably want to get dressed.”

Asami shuffled around on her bunk so that she was almost facing the wall. Korra mumbled something incoherently, her tongue suddenly feeling dry and clumsy as she dropped her blanket and started fumbling through the pile of clothes that had been scattered on the floor. Korra glanced up at her cellmate and caught Asami peeking over her shoulder. Korra cleared her throat and smiled to herself as Asami’s eyes darted up to the ceiling. Korra was glad the cell was dark enough to hide her blush.

She pulled the shapeless underwear up her legs and over the curve of her arse, secretly hoping that Asami was looking again. She was. Korra heard Asami gulp as she raised her arms to slip the grey vest over her head. ‘Poor, sweet, gay Asami’, Korra thought to herself as she took a little longer than necessary to get the vest over her chest. She was going to have a lot of fun teasing her cellmate. She wouldn’t know what had hit her!

“You can turn around now,” Korra whispered as she bent over to untangle the crumpled jumpsuit she’d been given. Asami stifled a surprised intake of breath and it came out like a wounded animal’s death rattle. “You alright?” Korra asked innocently, trying desperately not to laugh.

“Mmm-hm!” Asami hummed, crossing her legs awkwardly, chewing her lip and looking anywhere but at Korra’s rear.

‘Oh yep, this is gonna be fun,’ Korra laughed to herself as she pulled the jumpsuit up to her waist. Instead of zipping it up, she gathered up the loose material and tied the sleeves around her hips. She sighed to herself in relief and gathered up her loose, damp hair into a ponytail.

“You got a hair tie or something?” Korra asked. After a few moments Asami realised she’d just been sitting there watching Korra getting dressed. She shook herself as if in a stupor, jumped up, and began ferretting through the disordered mess on the shelf over her bunk.

She finally found something that would work and threw it to Korra. Caught off guard and with both her hands holding her hair in place, Korra wasn’t even close to catching the piece of wire Asami had thrown.

“Shit,” Korra hissed. She had to get down on her knees and grope in the dark for it. She finally found the improvised hair tie and got to her feet. “What is this? A bit of copper wiring or something?” she asked, knitting her eyebrows together and holding it up to the light.

“Sorry, it’s the best thing I can find for now,” Asami said apologetically. “I can find something else for you if you want,” she offered.

“Oh, no!” Korra said hurriedly, tying her hair back with the twist of wire. “It’s great. Thanks.”

“S’okay …” Asami muttered awkwardly, cracking her knuckles and searching the cell desperately for something to talk about.

“Ugh, I fucking hate orange!” Korra grumbled as she brushed the grime off her knees.

“Not your colour, huh?” Asami laughed.

“Not at all! I wonder if I could ask for something in blue,” Korra smiled. She sat down next to Asami, drawing her knees up onto the bunk and resting her chin on them.

“You could try,” Asami said holding a crooked finger to her chin as if in deep internal debate. “But judging by the state of the guards that brought you here, I doubt they’re very eager to do you any favours.” Korra laughed half-heartedly and rubbed her eyes sleepily. “Besides,” Asami said, leaning in and closing the gap between them slightly, “I think you look pretty hot in lurid orange.”

Korra narrowed her eyes at Asami, silently cursing her for being so damn attractive. She’d only just met her and she was already making her feel like a hormonal teenager with a crush. Only moments before, Korra had thought this seduction game would be fun for her. Now, as the subtle hints of Asami’s skin and sweat and hair filled her senses and warm breath tickled her cheek, she was less sure that she’d win.

But Korra wasn’t going to let Asami win this game that she didn’t even know she was playing. She forced a laugh at Asami’s joke and ‘accidentally’ let her hand fall onto Asami’s knee. Korra smiled to herself as she felt Asami tense beneath her touch until, unknowingly playing Korra at her own game, the dazzling woman ran a hand through her raven-black hair and echoed Korra’s throaty laugh. Korra felt something inside her squirm. Literally. She ran to the aluminium toilet in the corner of the cell and threw up violently.

“You okay, sweetie?” Asami asked, her voice heavy with concern.

“Yeah,” Korra muttered woozily, gripping the rim of the toilet bowl and waving Asami’s worry away. “Think I’ve just got a concussion. Maybe two.”

Korra would have killed for an aspirin about now. An aspirin and a glass of Scotch.

Asami put a comforting hand on her bare shoulder. Korra’s skin prickled beneath her touch.

Make that a _bottle_ of Scotch.

Korra only stopped throwing up when her stomach was completely empty. Asami helped her up and she staggered over to her own bunk on the other side of the cramped cell. Korra plonked herself down and rubbed her sore head. Asami crouched down in front of her and smiled up at her.

“Get some sleep, honey,” she whispered. Korra stroked Asami’s cheek clumsily with her thumb and mumbled something that made Asami blush. Her head was spinning so much that, when morning came, she couldn't remember what she’d said. She slumped down on the hard bed and closed her eyes. Asami lifted Korra’s legs up onto the bunk and whispered "Good night".

Korra murmured something back but the dull buzzing and the twilight glow from the barrier across the cell was already sending her off to sleep.

Without warning, a flood of loneliness and (Korra would never have admitted it) fear overwhelmed her. She stifled a sob so that Asami wouldn’t hear. Korra wanted to hear Raava’s voice again. She _needed_ to hear Raava’s voice again. She hadn’t heard it since she’d been shot down over the baking ocean of sand on Si Wong.

She reached out with her mind to Raava almost pleadingly. There was no answer. She told herself that she was probably out of range or that her concussion had upset her implants but she couldn’t shake the gut wrenching feeling that maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t hear Raava’s voice again.

Korra sniffed and held back her tears. She rolled over and gripped the rough blankets in her fists.

She wanted to go home.

“It was nice to meet you,” she heard Asami whisper.

“You too,” Korra said, painfully aware of how her voice caught in her throat. “Wish it’d been … under better … circumstances …” she murmured as she drifted off into a restless sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Korra spat out her toothpaste into the sink. The gritty, blue froth was streaked with blood. Korra looked at the red-marbled foam dejectedly, curling her lip in frustration. She carefully prodded her teeth with the tip of her tongue, grimacing as one of them wobbled at the slight pressure. Korra decided it was best to just leave it alone so she straightened up and rinsed her toothbrush under the tap. She’d had to borrow it from Asami as she’d yet to be issued hers. The cold, damp floor of the communal washroom under her feet was a constant reminder to her that she hadn’t been given any shoes either.

Looking at her distorted reflection in the cracked mirror, she ran her tongue over the gaping cut in her bottom lip and winced. Her mouth was swollen and raw and an ugly purple bruise had spread along her jaw and across the bridge of her broken nose. Worse than that, her eyes were puffy from crying. She splashed her face with water hoping that people wouldn’t notice or at least mistake it for tiredness or bruising.

Korra groaned and rubbed her neck. She’d slept badly last night and had woken up with every inch of her body screaming in pain. Which, considering the beating she’d received yesterday, was not very surprising.

She’d let her guard down in front of Asami last night. Her cellmate had pulled her out of bed that morning when the klaxon rang signalling the first inspection of the day. She hadn’t said anything but Korra had seen the way Asami had looked at her before she’d wiped the trails of salt from her cheeks.

She wasn’t going to let herself get too close to Asami or any of the other prisoners, she decided while frowning at her reflection. She’d give Asami the cold shoulder. The flirtation that had started last night had to end. Korra wasn’t even sure Asami _had_ been flirting so that wouldn’t be too hard.

Korra rinsed the taste of blood out of her mouth and repeated her promise to herself.

She nearly jumped out her skin when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“I like your tattoo!” the dark skinned teen smiled, pointing at the blue-inked dragon-bird spirit that was coiled like a snake around Korra’s powerful right arm. Its plumed tail reached down to her sore wrist, its brilliantly fiery wings were furled back against its scaled body along her bicep, and its sharp beak was poised on her shoulder as if ready to strike.

Korra didn’t want to make friends so she merely grunted her thanks.

“You’re Korra, right? I’m Kai,” the half-naked teenager said, smiling broadly despite Korra’s coldness. He pulled two cigarettes out from under his binder and handed one to Korra. She hesitated for a moment before taking it and thanking Kai with a smile and nod. “Where’d you get it done?” he asked, leaning against the sink next to Korra, his back to the mirrors, and nodding at her arm.

“Not sure,” Korra admitted, rolling the unlit cigarette between her fingers absentmindedly. 

Nearly everything from the month or two after the portal blew up was a blur. Korra didn't remember much, but every now and then she'd get little glimpses, distorted by alcohol and misery. She vaguely remembered Mako leaving her. Or her leaving Mako. She wasn't sure. She would occasionally get flashes of brutal fistfights in alleyways and bars, crying for hours until it hurt, waking up alone on cold floors clutching a bottle, and she had the faint memory of getting a tattoo done, somewhere dark and dirty and cold. The more she focused on the fragments of memory, the harder they became to hold on to. After a while, Korra had stopped trying to work out exactly what she'd done all those years ago. And, despite everything, she was rather proud of the tattoo.

She could have told Kai this, that she got the tattoo done during a long bout of depression and self-destruction, but she was trying to appear distant and aloof. A slight smile spread across her mangled lips to hide the pain that the memory of that time still caused.

Kai screwed his eyes up at her in confusion at her enigmatic answer but shrugged it off after a drag on his cigarette. He tapped the ash off into the sink and folded his arms. “So … what you in for?”

Korra threw her head back and laughed. “I thought everyone in prison was innocent!”

“True! But some of us are more innocent than others.” Kai laughed, the end of the cigarette glowing and the smoke curling around his fingers. “I hear you’ve already caused a bit of trouble. You’ve been here less than a day and you’ve already sent …” Kai began counting on his fingers dramatically and smiling cheekily at Korra, “… about six of the guards to the infirmary. Must be a new record.”

“Do I get a medal?” Korra asked, laughing slightly as Kai lit her cigarette for her. She wasn’t doing very well at not making friends, she thought.

She looked up as one of the shower curtains opposite them was whisked open and Asami stepped out, naked and dripping wet, her soaked jet-black hair plastered over her shoulders. Korra’s mouth fell open and she felt her chest contract and her heart leap up into her throat. She pretended not to notice her and tried to fix her gaze on a patch of mould on the floor by her feet but she couldn’t help letting her eyes wander over Asami’s body.

Korra felt the blood rising in her cheeks and down her neck as her eyes roamed over the curve of Asami’s breasts, down her taut, glistening stomach towards the thicket of dark hair between her legs. Korra watched as water ran down her sunburnt, freckled body in glistening rivulets. She realised she was practically drooling but still couldn’t tear herself away.

The cell had been so dark last night and she’d been so distracted drinking in the delicate curves of her body that it was only now that Korra realised Asami’s right arm was cybernetic. It looked like it had been taken apart and put back together several times. It was more recycled spare parts than anything else. The segments of silicone ‘skin’ that covered the arm were scuffed and grazed and the flesh of her shoulder where skin met metal was pink and mangled as if it had been burnt.

The imperfections of Asami’s body – her freckles, the scarring around her shoulder and along her collarbone, the slight shadow of dark hair down her shins, the faint stretch marks that lightninged their way across her stomach, the red marks around her mouth from biting her lip – just made Korra all the more fascinated and enamoured with her. Korra was reminded of staring at a painting as a child. Standing so close to the masterpiece, her nose practically pressed against the canvas, she’d been able to see every intricate brushstroke the artist had made, the wrinkles of the canvas, the specks of dust caught in the paint, and the cracks in the aged brushwork. The picture had seemed even more beautiful because of its flaws in the same way that seeing Asami under the harsh fluorescent lights made her all the more stunning. Her jade eyes seemed more vibrant and her smile even more infectious now that she could see every part of her – every brushstroke and every crack.

Korra blinked confusedly as if coming out of a trance as Asami greeted them.

“I see you’ve met Kai,” Asami said, either completely unaware of the effect she was having on Korra or relishing it. “Kai’s the guy who can get you things,” she said as if repeating a well-known advertising slogan or celebrity catchphrase.

Korra’s pulse quickened as Asami gathered her slick hair up into a bun. She managed an “Oh”, not trusting herself to be able to make full words, let alone sentences.

“Yup,” Kai said beaming with pride and turning to Korra. “Hey, seeing as you’re new, I’ll do your first order completely free of charge. What’ll it be?”

“A bottle of Scotch and Ginger Gross,” Korra said without thinking.

“The actress?” Kai asked perplexedly before grinning cheekily. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, snuffing out his cigarette in the sink and running off across the puddled floor leaving Korra alone to pick her jaw back up off the tiles.

Asami smiled at Korra, arching her eyebrows wickedly as she took the untouched cigarette from between her fingers. Korra had completely forgotten about it and it had burnt almost halfway. She watched almost transfixed as Asami tapped the column of ash off and placed it between her lips. For a split second, Korra felt something like a pang of jealousy. It seemed so unfair that the cigarette got to touch those lips – those perfect lips – and she didn’t.

Asami puffed the acrid tobacco smoke out of her nose and smiled kindly at Korra who was desperately trying to keep her eyes away from Asami’s chest.

“How you feeling, sweetie?” she asked, reaching out, her prosthetic fingers hovering uncertainly over Korra’s shoulder.

“I gotta … shower … have … now,” Korra spluttered. She vanished into one of the cubicles, whipped the mildewed curtain closed, and breathed a sigh of relief. She tore her clothes off clumsily, her bruised arms so numb and stiff she could barely lift them above her head. She draped her clothes over the side of the stall and turned on the shower. There didn’t seem to be any hot water at all as the shower sputtered into life, taking Korra’s breath away.

She didn’t mind.

A cold shower was what she needed right now.

Feeling more in control of herself after her shower, Korra dried herself off quickly and pulled her clothes back on. Asami had gone by the time she’d finished and she had no idea where she was supposed to go. Panic gripped her for a moment but she pushed it down.

She let herself be carried along by the steady flow of inmates out of the washrooms. Korra soon found herself in a bustling canteen and picked up a tray and joined the queue for food. She was wedged between a large, pink, gelatinous alien and a toothless old woman who stunk of piss. Korra kept her head down and avoided eye contact. Her empty stomach growled eagerly as bowls of rice, some kind of fried meat, dumplings, wrinkled fruit, and tea were handed to her.

Her tray laden with food, Korra meandered through the cramped canteen.

“Korra! Over here!” Asami yelled from a few tables away, waving encouragingly. For a few moments Korra considered ignoring her and sitting somewhere else. She didn’t want to give Asami the impression they were friends. She hurriedly scanned the canteen for empty seats but everyone was crammed in tightly like canned fish. Asami was still waving to her so Korra took a deep breath and ducked around a throng of shrimp-like aliens that were excitedly playing some kind of board game.

Asami had evidently done her makeup while Korra had been showering and calming her soaring blood pressure. The sight of Asami with her hair tied back, a few stray curls perfectly framing her smoky eyes and crimson lips, made Korra weak at the knees. Korra wondered how the hell she managed to get her makeup to look so bloody flawless in prison. She decided that there was probably some kind of witchcraft involved.

She realised as she sat down in the space Asami had saved for her that she had arrived partway through a heated debate.

“… serious! Kuvira was an exotic dancer on Zaofu before Hou-Ting was killed!” a very pregnant woman was saying from the far end of the table. “It’s true!”

“Really, Pema?” an old but sprightly looking woman laughed in disbelief, her chopsticks hovering halfway to her mouth as she spoke. “Last week you said Kuvira used to be a lingerie model.”

“Hey! You saw that magazine! That model looked a lot like Kuvira! It was an honest mistake, Kya!”

“She looked nothing like Kuvira,” a young woman sitting opposite Korra said quietly without looking up from her book.

Korra ignored their bickering and began to wolf down her breakfast. She was careful to make sure that she only chewed on the left side of her mouth so as to avoid the molar that had come loose. She would have sold her soul there and then without a moment’s hesitation for a bowl of the seaweed noodles that she’d loved so much growing up on her frozen home world.

The rice was tasteless and dry and stuck in her throat. It was possibly the best thing she’d ever eaten. An empty stomach would do that to you. She shovelled the stodgy dumplings into her mouth, only stopping to take a gulp of the lukewarm tea. It had a shimmering film on its surface like oil and she could taste the rust from the kettle.

Pausing for breath, she wiped her chin with the back of her hand and belched loudly. Korra realised that the arguing had subsided and glanced up for a moment as she scraped the last few grains of rice out of her bowl. Everyone was staring at her. Korra swallowed nervously.

“Another happy customer!” Kya laughed, looking at Pema who was smiling delightedly.

“It … it’s really good,” Korra lied with her mouth already full again. She knew better than to insult the cook.

“It’s not but I do the best I can with what I’ve got,” Pema said wearily. “I’d better get back to work,” she sighed, getting to her feet slowly and pressing a hand to her tired back.

As soon as she stood up, a shock of close-cropped, curly brown hair appeared and Kai wormed his way up from under the table, sliding into the space where Pema had been. He grinned crookedly, his eyes gleaming, and pulled four pots of yogurt out from his unzipped jumpsuit. He slid them across the table to his friends, pulled out another few pots from god-knew-where and handed them out too. Pema shook her head, tutted, and slapped him gently across the back of his head before going back to the kitchen.

“Pema still going on about Kuvira ‘the Great Belly Dancer’?” Kai asked, draping his arm around a girl with intricate tattoos that marked her as a space-nomad.

“Yup,” the girl said, kissing him on his cheek and making him blush. Asami still hadn’t touched her food, Korra noticed. “How’d your meeting with the warden go?”

“Lu said that because I’ve only just started my transition then I can’t be moved to a men’s prison ‘for safety reasons’. And he won’t order the hormones I asked for because ‘don’t you know there’s a war on?’” Kai said, curling his lip angrily. He looked almost like he was holding back tears. “Stole this from his desk though,” he laughed, taking an expensive-looking cigar out of his sleeve which Kya grabbed before he could whisk it away. “And I assume you’re the one who gave him the gashes on his neck, Korra!”

Korra smiled and began attacking the dried fruit hungrily as the conversation turned to jokes about Warden Lu that she didn’t understand. While she devoured the last of her breakfast, she greedily eyed the food that Asami had forgotten about. Asami was fidgeting with her sleeve, tugging at the frayed orange cuff, and pulling it down over her clenched cybernetic hand while she listened to her friends with a contented smile.

Korra wanted to put a comforting hand over Asami’s and stroke her metal fingers but she quickly buried that urge. This was silly! She’d know the woman for less than twenty-four hours!

Pushing her empty tray away, Korra rubbed her aching neck, and speared one of Asami’s dumplings with a chopstick. Asami glared at her but her pursed lips betrayed her amusement. Korra pulled a face at her and stuck the dumpling in her mouth in one huge gulp. The girl reading across the table looked up from her book, met Korra’s eyes and smiled knowingly at her before turning back to her dog-eared paperback, grinning to herself.

Kya was smiling broadly at her too and raising her eyebrows inquisitively. Korra was about to say something in protest to the meaningful glances that were being shot at her and Asami over the table when a discordant klaxon rung out through the canteen, overwhelming the excited chattering and giving Korra another headache.

Everyone stood up and began filing out of the canteen. Still sitting and looking around in confusion, the alarm ringing through her skull, Korra tugged at Asami’s arm and looked up at her with wide, questioning eyes.

“Oh,” Asami shouted over the din, “we’ve all got work assignments. Were you not told where to go?”

“I wasn’t even given shoes!” Korra yelled as she pushed herself up, her back and legs screaming in protest.

“Go with Opal!” Asami said, pointing to the girl who’d been reading. “She’s got laundry duty so there won’t be anything for you to break,” she laughed.

“Can’t I just tag along with you?” Korra asked, realising too late how clingy she must have sounded.

Asami’s answer was drowned out by an outburst of shouting from a brawl that had broken out nearby, so she had to just shake her head and gently push Korra towards Opal. Korra watched Asami squirm her way through the crowd and vanish in the pressing mass of bodies as she and Opal were swept away in the rush to leave the canteen. They shuffled down several levels of the prison in silence, watched over by stern-faced guards and dead-eyed security cameras.

The laundry was oppressively noisy and humid, the heat from the dryers hit Korra full in the face as the doors swung open. Opal pulled Korra along by the dangling sleeves tied around her hips. She dragged her over to a far corner of the laundry where she promptly threw herself onto a pile of pillow cases and opened her battered novel. Korra had no idea how Opal was able to read with this deafening cacophony assaulting them from all sides.

Korra stood awkwardly for a few moments, her arms akimbo. She was unsure whether to do some work like she was supposed to or whether she should follow Opal’s example. Shrugging to herself, Korra eased herself down behind a trolley loaded with blankets, her tired muscles stiff and unwilling.

She hung her head and sighed wearily.

She wondered what Asami was doing.

Not that she cared.

She reached into the trolley behind her and pulled out a crumpled blanket. She balled it up and curled up on the floor, clutching the blanket under her head in the crook of her arm. Korra closed her eyes but images of a dark haired woman coming out of a shower flickered through her mind. Biting her lip, she rubbed her legs together and tried to grasp at the fleeting images.

A gentle nudge in the ribs woke her from her daydreaming. She opened an eye reluctantly. Opal had put her book down on the mound of laundry, a stray sock marking her place. She was leaning forwards, cupping her chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees.

“Mmm?”

“So,” Opal said teasingly, smiling down at Korra, “you and Asami, huh?”

“What?!” Korra asked, shocked. She tried to prop herself up on her elbow but her muscles were refusing to do what they were told. “What about … I don’t … shouldn’t you be working?!”

Opal scoffed and leant forward so she wouldn’t have to compete with the racket of the washing machines and dryers and the incessant clamour of the other inmates vying with each other to be heard over the noise. “You like her, don’t you?!” she said, grinning.

Now it was Korra’s turn to scoff though from the look on Opal’s face she clearly was only fooling herself. “She seems alright, I guess,” she conceded reluctantly.

“’Alright’?” Opal said in disbelief. “Come on! She is gorgeous! Her hair, her lips, her legs (spirits, those legs!), and her makeup!”

“I know right!” Korra said sitting up, ignoring the pain shooting through her aching muscles. Opal smiled devilishly, pleased that she’d caught Korra in her trap. Korra knew she’d been caught out but she didn’t really mind. It felt good to talk to someone. Especially when it was about Asami. “Is her makeup always so perfect? How does she do it?”

“No one knows!” Korra wasn’t sure if Opal was mocking her or if Asami’s beauty regime really was as major a debate amongst her friends as Opal made it seem. “There are lots of competing theories but the most convincing ones all seem to involve the blood of innocent children.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true!” Korra’s laugh trailed off as she imagined tugging at Asami’s blood-red bottom lip with her teeth and then pictured those lips forming a perfect ‘O’ as she climaxed. She felt the blood rushing into her cheeks and twisted her head around, pretending to rub her stiff neck, hoping Opal wouldn’t notice.

She did notice.

“Are you blushing? You really do like her!” Opal laughed. “I was only teasing but, damn, you’ve fallen for her hard!”

“I have not!” Korra said, pouting.

Opal shook her head and smiled sympathetically. “It must suck having to share a cell with her then. I bet you can cut the sexual tension in there with a knife!”

“I changed my mind: I don’t think I like you anymore.” Korra said, still pouting.

Opal laughed and threw a sock at Korra. “Aww, come on! Who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky. I shared a cell with her a while back so I can give you some pointers if you want. Don’t leave your underwear on the floor,” she said, rubbing her chin and dredging her memory. “Don’t touch the box on her shelf. Don’t ask! I have no idea what’s in it. Whatever you do, do not play her at Pai Sho! Oh,” a wicked grin flashed across her face, “and she draws when she’s horny!”

Korra’s laughter caught in her throat as a shadow fell over them.

“H-hey.”

“Oh, uh, hey,” Opal said, her face turning red as she smiled up at the broad-shouldered guard. Korra recognised him as the kind-faced guard who’d given Asami the key to her cuffs last night.

“Y-you should be working,” he said, almost as flustered as Opal.

“I am working!” Opal said, pretending to sound indignant. “Look,” she said holding up a stained pillow case, “perfectly clean. Only five hundred left to go.”

“Good work!” he grinned.

“Besides,” Opal said, running her fingers through her short hair awkwardly, “I’m busy bonding with the newbie.”

“Oh, sorry! Don’t let me interrupt!” he said, holding up his hands apologetically.

“You weren’t,” Opal said, looking away shyly.

He pulled at the tight collar of his uniform and continued on his rounds. He banged his knee on one of the huge bins of laundry as he left their corner and shot a worried glance at Opal but she’d pretended not to notice.

“Looks like I’m not the only one with a crush!” Korra laughed as Opal turned a deeper shade of embarrassed.

“I … I don’t. That’s just Bolin. He’s …” Opal floundered, struggling to find the words.

“’Alright’?” Korra suggested.

Now it was Opal’s turn to pout and she whacked Korra with a pillow case.

The two of them continued to toil away in the laundry for the next few hours and by the time the dinner klaxon sounded they’d cleaned a grand total of two blankets (and that was just so they could wrap themselves up in them when they came out of the dryer, warm and steaming). Korra didn’t listen to any of the conversations during the meal and she pushed the greasy peppers around her plate, barely taking a single bite. She didn’t even protest when Opal and the others began teasing Korra about her infatuation with her cellmate. She just kept her eyes fixed on the canteen entrance waiting for Asami, but she didn’t arrive.

Opal noticed how quiet Korra was when they’d been herded back to the laundry after they’d eaten. She tried needling Korra about her crush on Asami but was quick enough to catch the pained look in Korra’s eyes and quickly changed tack. Instead she racked her memory, trying desperately to remember as many of Kya’s dirty jokes as she could. She only got a few half-hearted chuckles from Korra so the two of them got to work piling sodden bundles of laundry into the huge dryers in silence.

When she and the other inmates had been sent back to their cells, Korra curled up on her bed, exhausted. She looked at Asami’s empty bed forlornly and wondered where she was. Korra felt stupid. She was pining after a woman she’d known for less than a day and had barely spoken five words to! But then Korra always had been rather impulsive.

She sat up and groaned. Every muscle in her body felt like it was on fire and her broken nose felt like a shard of ice wedged between her eyes. She eased herself down onto the floor, crossed her stiff legs, placed her fists together against her abdomen, and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath in, held it, and let it out slowly, the pain ebbing slightly.

Everyone in the cellblock was worn out from the day’s labour and the throbbing energy fields hadn’t been activated yet so an eerie silence had fallen over the prison. Korra emptied her mind and reached out into the vacuum.

_Raava?_

_Raava, are you there?_

_Please … I need you._

There was no answer.

She sat there shouting into the void with her mind until her legs had gone numb and her back felt like it was on fire. The gaping pit of loneliness opened up inside her again as she pleaded over and over for Raava to answer her. She let her head fall forwards so that her chin was resting on her chest.

“What’re you doing?”

Korra’s stomach fluttered at the sound of Asami’s voice.

“Meditating,” Korra said without opening her eyes. She fought a smile and the gnawing sense of loneliness and isolation began to feel just a little less painful.

“Really? You were snoring a minute ago.” Asami said.

Korra opened an eye and peeked up at Asami. Her hair was tied back, her sleeves were rolled up over her elbows, and her hands and forearms were stained black with what looked and smelt like engine oil. There was a smudge of grease on her cheek that made Korra melt a little inside.

“Where were you all day?” Korra asked, trying to sound conversational and nonchalant.

“One of the pumps broke on the water filter a few levels down so I’ve been up to my armpits in sewage all day,” she explained, untying her hair and letting it cascade down over her shoulders. Korra clenched her eyes tightly shut and tried to calm her breathing. “I was an engineer before all this so they tend to get me to fix everything any time anything breaks around here. Which is actually quite often. This whole satellite is held together with sticky tape and paperclips.”

“Sounds like more fun than working in the laundry.”

“I dunno about that!” Asami laughed, sniffing at the collar of her jumpsuit. “I thought it was probably best if you kept your head down for a while though.”

It was just as well that Korra had her eyes sealed tightly shut because Asami had peeled off her soiled jumpsuit and was sitting on the toilet, her panties around her ankles.

Korra mumbled her agreement and stopped pretending to meditate as Asami climbed into bed. She gulped as Asami crossed her bare legs and ran her fingers through her mess of hair. She rubbed her excruciating neck and winced.

Asami glanced up from the book she’d pulled out from under her pillow and tilted her head in concern.

“You want a massage, sweetie?”

“I’m okay thanks!” Korra said far too hurriedly. “You’ve, uh, got something there,” she said quietly, clambering to her feet. She reached out a tentative hand to Asami’s face and, pausing for just a heartbeat, gently wiped the smear of grease from her cheek with her thumb. Asami held her gaze and swallowed as both of them blushed slightly. Korra immediately regretted it and cursed to herself as she clambered onto her bed. She lay on her back and fixed her eyes on the ceiling. She tried counting the rivets that were embedded in the stained metal of the cell.

Her eyes kept drifting back to Asami on the other side of the cell. She was chewing her thumbnail as she read, her eyes locked on the book though Korra noticed that she seemed to have been stuck on the same page for quite a while. Korra watched her chest rising and falling gently underneath her loose vest. Korra shifted her body uncomfortably, a hot pressure rising inside her that only got worse as the memories of Asami coming out of the shower rose unbidden into her mind.

Near breaking point and ignoring the pulsing pain in her muscles, Korra jumped off her bed and rolled her shoulders. She gritted her teeth, spread her hands on the cold floor and began doing press-ups furiously. Her arms were sore before she’d even begun and the pain was making her sweat after only a few seconds.

“Do you have to do that when I’m reading?” Asami asked. Korra looked up at her without slowing even though her whole body was screaming at her to stop.

“Yup,” Korra said between breathless gasps. She had to vent her frustrations somehow.

Asami sucked her teeth, dropping her book onto the floor. She reached under her bed and pulled out a wad of creased scraps of paper and two worn-down graphite pencils.

As Asami began to draw, Korra was reminded of something that Opal had said earlier that day. She smiled to herself and put one hand behind her back as Asami chewed on the end of one of her pencils and scribbled feverishly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while since the last update. This chapter ended up being a lot harder and a lot longer than I'd thought it would be.

Korra woke up in a cold sweat to echoing screams of excruciating pain. She gasped desperately for air and tried to calm her shaking hands.

The dream was already fading, leaving behind just the lingering sensations of fear and panic. The details of the nightmare were rapidly dissolving into vague, fleeting shadows by the time her breathing had returned to normal. She couldn’t remember exactly what had tormented her this time but she knew it had been the same man as always.

The memory of his scarred face sneering down at her as she lay bloody and broken under the baking suns haunted her nearly every night.

She sat up and ran her fingers through her long, sweat-slick hair, pushing it out of her eyes. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was. Her arms were so sore she could barely move them. She’d clearly overdone it with the press-ups last night. Korra untangled the blankets from around her ankles and swung her legs off the bed. The frigid air of the cell prickled her damp skin making her shiver. She sat in the dark with her head in her hands and tried to think of a reason to get out of bed.

Startled, she realised that the sounds of pain that had woken her from her nightmare hadn’t stopped. Korra had assumed that it had been her own crying or something from her dream that had woken her. She looked around, trying to find the source of the noise which was when she saw Asami curled up on her bed on the far side of the cell.

Korra pushed herself up and padded barefoot across the cold floor. She squatted down on her heels next to Asami’s bed and reached out to her tentatively. Asami flinched away from Korra’s touch and turned her face away.

“Asami?” she whispered.

Korra’s cellmate avoided looking at her. Her face was deathly pale and contorted in agony, her quivering lip was raw from biting back the pain, and her breath came in shallow, throaty gasps. Asami had her back to the damp wall and the forgotten bedcovers were drenched in sweat. She’d drawn her knees up as if to make herself as small as possible and was clutching at her right arm. Korra put a hand to Asami’s cheek and turned her face to hers. When she met Korra’s gaze, Asami’s eyes were filled with glistening tears but she was holding them back with gritted teeth.

“Asami! What’s wrong?” Korra asked desperately, searching her eyes for some sign of what was happening to her. “Are you hurt? Are you having a panic attack? Do you need me to get some help?”

She tried to answer but her body just shook violently with barely contained sobs.

Her own nightmare now a distant memory, Korra tried to soothe Asami’s waking one. She climbed up onto the bed next to Asami and brushed aside a strand of the damp hair that was stuck to her clammy forehead.

Asami gulped back her agony and gasped breathlessly. “It’s nothing … my arm … phantom pain … it’ll pass soon… usually does …”

That was all she managed to whimper before another spasm of pain shot through her, turning her voice into a choked rasp and leaving her writhing on the bed in a sheen of cold sweat.

Korra looked down at Asami’s cybernetic arm that was pressed against her stomach. The metal fingers were twitching and contorted while the nails of her left hand dug into the silicone casing of her artificial arm as if she were trying to draw blood.

Korra wrapped her arms around Asami and pulled her close.

“Sssh-sssh, it’s okay,” Korra whispered. “Just breathe. It’s gonna be okay. I’ve got you. It’s all gonna be okay. Do you have any meds or anything?”

Asami shook her head and sunk into the embrace, suddenly letting out the tears she’d been so desperately holding in.

Korra held Asami’s face against her chest and stroked her soot-black hair calmingly. She felt Asami shudder as her body was racked by violent sobs and every breath she took sounded like she was drowning. She still sobbed loudly and clung to the back of Korra’s vest. Korra pulled her closer. She could feel every tortured breath she took and every beat of her heart. Korra felt like her own heart was being torn in two.

“I’m sorry …” Asami spluttered breathlessly through her tears, “… c-can’t … I’m sorry …”

Korra shushed her quietly and held her tighter.

Asami’s breathing slowly began to calm and her body didn’t shake so much with every laboured breath she took.

Korra shifted her legs under her so that she was sitting with her back against the wall and guided Asami’s limp and weary body down so that she was lying on the sweat-soaked covers with her head in Korra’s lap. Her breathing was almost normal now but she still hiccupped every so often as the tears carried on bubbling up. Korra caressed Asami’s hair, running her fingers gently through her curls, whispering soothing nothings to her in the dark.

Eventually Asami’s tears and choked sobs stopped. She still clung to Korra as if she were the only thing keeping her head above water in a storm. Korra watched Asami’s chest rising and falling, calm and regular now. She stroked a few wisps of hair out of Asami’s face and gently brushed away the last droplets of salty tears that still clung to her lashes.

Outside the cell, the lights began to flicker on, clicking and buzzing like a chorus of insects. The guards would be doing the morning headcount and inspections soon. Korra eased Asami up into a sitting position, gently unwound Asami’s arm from around her waist, and slid off the bed. She kicked aside the pile of screwed up balls of paper Asami had discarded onto the floor last night and fumbled in the dark for the filthy jumpsuit Asami had taken off. Korra found it thrown in the corner of the cell, shook it out, and turned back to Asami.

Asami was staring into space and, even in the dim light of the cell, Korra could see the trails of snot and ruined mascara that were running down her face. The droplets of sweat on her skin glinted like stars in the dark. Korra ripped a handful of the thin, coarse toilet paper off the roll. She knelt down on the floor in front of Asami, handed her the tissue paper and smiled up at her. Asami sniffed, rubbed her bloodshot eyes and wiped her nose. With a hand on her ankle, Korra carefully began to work Asami’s foot into one of the legs of the jumpsuit.

“That’s it,” Korra whispered encouragingly as she started to dress Asami. “In there … And the left one … Let’s sort out your feet … There we go …” Her feet in the appropriate holes, Korra then pulled the orange uniform up Asami’s legs. “Shift your bum for me … Good … Can you move your arm? … No rush … Take your time … Let me do that … It’s okay … Don’t worry … There we go.” Korra eased Asami’s cybernetic arm into the sleeve and helped her with the other arm.

Korra put a hand on Asami’s knee and smiled warmly at her. She reached for the zipper but Asami was regaining her composure and gently brushed Korra’s hand away. Korra smiled as Asami yanked up the stiff zipper. She was doing it one handed and halfway up the fastener got caught on the frayed orange fabric. Asami tugged on it and swore under her breath.

Seeing how frustrated she was getting, Korra moved Asami’s hand away. Asami let her head fall back and sighed resignedly as Korra fixed the zip and pulled it up all the way to the base of her throat.

Korra climbed back to her feet and stretched. Her legs were tired from crouching in front of Asami for so long. She took Asami’s hand and helped her up. Asami folded her arms across her chest and stood shivering as Korra hurriedly made both their beds and gathered up the scattered scraps of paper. The floor was covered in them. Asami had been hornier than she’d thought. ‘It was those one-armed press-ups that did it,’ Korra thought to herself, grinning crookedly. Her shoulders were killing her but seeing the look on Asami’s flushed face and the way she’d chewed on that pencil had been worth it.

That had been a very different Asami from the one that was trembling next to her now. She’d shown a side of herself that made her vulnerable and Korra felt … she wasn’t sure what she felt anymore. It wasn’t just the lust from before. This … this was different. Sure, she still wanted to feel the heat of Asami’s breath in her mouth and wrap her thighs around her head and a whole host of other things that made her blush just thinking about but something was different now.

When the barrier deactivated, the two stood rigidly in the middle of the cell waiting for the guards to burst in and perform their ‘inspection’. As their cell was being trashed, Korra reached out to Asami and brushed her fingers against the back of her warm left hand. Korra smiled to herself as their little fingers intertwined and gave Asami a reassuring squeeze.

“Please eat something,” Korra whispered to Asami later at breakfast.

She’d helped Asami to the showers after the inspections and waited outside while she bathed and did her makeup (which was just a little less flawless this morning). After her shower, and with the smudged mascara gone from her cheeks, Asami now looked a little more like herself. The colour had returned to her cheeks and you could barely tell she’d been in tears only half an hour ago.

They were almost completely alone at the table. Pema was busy in the kitchen, Kai and Jinora said that Opal was talking to someone about today’s work placement, and neither of them knew where Kya was. Apparently there had been an outbreak of flu in another block so maybe she and the others that Korra had yet to meet had been quarantined.

Korra slid a bowl of watery stew towards Asami. “Please. You need to have something.”

Asami took the bowl reluctantly. She managed to force down a few spoonfuls before the klaxon rang and everyone began to leave the canteen. Korra got to her feet but before she’d been swept away in the crowd, Asami put a hand on her shoulder. She smiled at Korra and leant forwards. Korra felt the heat of her breath on her neck as Asami whispered “Thank you”. She squeezed Korra’s arm before elbowing her way out through the crowd.

Opal was waiting for Korra outside the canteen. She smiled broadly at Korra and explained excitedly that a shipment of new books had arrived on the shuttle. The prison’s library was shorthanded so she’d managed to persuade the librarian to let both of them work there this morning.

“I didn’t realise there was a library,” Korra admitted as they made their way down the bustling corridors.

“Yup, it’s pretty shit though,” Opal said, clutching her battered novel to her chest as she wormed her way through the crowds.

“When does anyone get time to use it?” Korra asked, perplexed. “We worked all day yesterday and only stopped to eat. I didn’t even have time to shit!”

“You build up leisure time based on how many hours of work you do a week,” Opal explained hurriedly, ushering Korra down a side corridor and shoved her into a large, carpeted room. “In here!”

The entire room was a labyrinth of books and smelt strongly of dust and old paper. The rickety shelves were stuffed almost to bursting and the floors were nearly invisible beneath the precarious towers of books and faded magazines. Some of the piles looked so big that Korra wondered whether they were holding up the ceiling.

There was a sudden rushing sound like jets or wings and Korra spun around. She gulped, her bare feet rooted to the carpet, as an inky-black shadow emerged from behind one of the ceiling-high bookcases. The hunched silhouette turned to face Korra and Opal, the dark, narrow eyes in the middle of its death-white face bored into Korra’s soul.

Opal bowed, shooting a glance to Korra that told her to do the same. “Wan Shi Tong,” Opal said reverently with, Korra thought, just a hint of mockery, “we are at your service.”

Its beak quivered and it craned its large head down towards them. The librarian’s eyes squinted as if studying the women intently as it loomed over them. A deep, ponderous humming spread from Wan Shi Tong’s huge, feathered chest and filled the room. Korra’s pulse quickened. Just being in the same room as the giant, feathered alien filled Korra with a child-like sense of wonder and awe. For perhaps the first time since they’d first appeared all those years ago, she understood why so many people had believed these aliens to be spirits when they’d come through that portal.

“ _Opal_.” Wan Shi Tong’s voice echoed through Korra’s bones and made her feel faint. “ _How are you?”_ The alien didn’t wait for a reply and began giving a series of complex instructions to the pair. Every sentence was punctuated by massive sweeps of broad wings and twitching of white ear-tufts.

Now laden almost to breaking point by boxes of worm-eaten books, Opal and Korra soon got to work sorting out the mess. Deep within the maze of shelves and out of sight of Wan Shi Tong’s piercing, sulphurous eyes, Opal sat down on her box and opened up her well-thumbed book.

Korra leant against one of the bookcases, folded her arms and chewed on her lip, bored stiff. She leant down and looked through the boxes she’d been carrying. Korra wasn’t an avid reader but even by her standards, most of the books looked like absolute rubbish. Over half of them were hackneyed romances set during the Hundred Year War. It astounded her that, more than seventy years later, this rubbish was still being churned out.

The rest of the box seemed to be thinly-veiled propaganda for Kuvira’s expansion of the Earth Empire. Korra rolled her eyes and began sorting the books into tidy piles. After a while, Korra began flicking through a particularly trashy-looking book. The shirtless man’s chiselled abs on the cover had immediately caught her eye. She had just found a particularly steamy chapter when she heard footsteps behind her. She dropped the book and staggered to her feet, almost knocking over a wobbling mountain of books.

In her shock, Korra had thought that it was Wan Shi Tong so she was relieved to see that it was just Kya. She was smiling mischievously and wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

“Morning,” she said, grinning devilishly as she sauntered cockily past them.

Opal smiled meaningfully at Korra but covered her mouth with her hand and pretended to be immersed in her book when a tall, granite-faced woman stepped out from behind a bookcase. She was struggling to zip her jumpsuit up so didn’t immediately notice Korra and Opal amidst the clutter. Her eyes widened in shock when she noticed them.

“Hey, kid,” she said gruffly to Opal after regaining her composure. She nodded to Korra as she ran a hand through her messy storm-grey hair. Her face was twisted into a permanent snarl by two old scars carved into the flesh of her right cheek but a slight smile softened her face for a second as she followed Kya out of the dusty library. She spun on her heel before she rounded the corner and shot a challenging look at the both of them. “You didn’t see anything!”

The icy threat in her voice was completely forgotten when Kya’s hand grabbed her by the collar and she vanished behind the shelves with a startled yell.

Opal screamed silently, her eyes wide with happiness and clapped her open book over her mouth. She jumped to her feet and grabbed Korra’s arm, shaking her excitedly and peeking between the shelves. Korra laughed quietly, picked up some of the books she’d been sorting and began finding space for them on the cramped shelf.

“Kya and Lin are doing it!” Opal whispered excitedly. “ _I knew it!_ ”

“They seem … cute together,” Korra said, unsure of what to say since she barely knew Kya and had never even seen Lin before.

“Forget that! Pema and Jinora owe me five packs of cigarettes now,” Opal said, her green eyes lighting up. “How’re you and Asami, by the way? Because I bet Kai ten packs that you two would be doing the dirty by the end of the week.”

Korra narrowed her eyes at Opal and stuck her tongue out at her. “Which one’s Jinora?”

“The cute girl with the nomad tattoos. Kai’s girlfriend,” Opal said, smiling to herself as Korra did her best to change the conversation. “But you don’t want to talk about _her_ do you?”

Korra winced as Opal nudged her in her bruised ribs. “No, you’re right. What’s Pema like?”

“She’s lovely!” Opal said, humouring Korra’s stubbornness. “She’s like a mother to the younger girls, especially Jinora and Ikki. Don’t mess with her though. A couple of months ago, some Triad chick tried flooding the prison with heroin. A couple of kids got hooked but Pema helped them get clean. The Triad girl had a run-in with a meat cleaver and lost an eye.” Opal whacked Korra on the head with a hardback encyclopaedia about Sozin’s Comet that had seen better days. “Now ask me about Asami, you idiot!”

Korra sighed, took the book from Opal and put it on a shelf she was trying to reach.

“How’d she lose her arm?” Korra finally asked, the memory of Asami’s pained and pleading tearstained eyes vivid in her mind.

Opal shrugged. “No idea. Probably a pod-racer accident or something. She’s not very open about her past, y’know. I think she puts up this … unflappable façade … she doesn’t let anyone in. I think that’s how she copes with everything. I don’t actually know anything about her, you just blush when you talk about her and it makes you look really cute!”

“Well you’re bloody useless, aren’t you?” Korra said, thumping Opal playfully. If what Opal said was true, then why did Asami let her see such a vulnerable and exposed side to herself this morning, Korra wondered. “What about you? You’re probably my best friend in this place and I know next to nothing about you.”

“I’m your best friend?” Opal asked in mock disbelief, clearly touched but still eager to tease Korra. “What about Asami?”

“Okay, you’re my best friend whose head I don’t want to wrap my legs around!”

“Well, now I’m just offended!” Opal laughed. “And _ewww_! There’s not much to tell really. I was born on Zaofu. I wanted to be a dancer or a writer. I don’t think I was particularly good at either. My family and I resisted the Earth Empire’s final assault on Zaofu … and now I’m here. I’ve got four brothers and no sisters and my mother’s … I’m on my own now.”

Opal had gotten quiet and Korra put a hand on her shoulder. Opal smiled at her though her eyes were brimming with sadness. “You don’t have to talk about it if …”

“I dunno why I’m telling you,” Opal sniffed, “but I actually knew Kuvira before all this crap started. She was my friend before she became ‘The Great Uniter’.” Kuvira’s title dripped off Opal’s tongue as if it were poison. “We were … I wanted to be a nomad when I was a kid … I’d read all about them. We wanted to help people, we wanted to see the universe. We were going to travel the stars together ...”

Korra pulled Opal into a hug as her slowly breaking voice finally gave way. For the second time that day, Korra stroked a sobbing friend’s hair and whispered soothingly.

Wan Shi Tong’s broad, porcelain face and hooked beak appeared from behind a bookcase. The librarian made a coughing sound as if clearing a congested throat. Korra shot a threatening glare at the feathered behemoth. She and Opal were quickly left alone again.

Korra decided that she liked the library. It was quiet and the carpeting was a pleasant relief to her bare feet even if it was suspiciously sticky in places. It also meant that she and Opal could talk together without being disturbed. Wan Shi Tong seemed intimidated by Korra and by emotions in general so kept at a safe distance from them, meaning they could sit and read sleazy romance novels without being disturbed.

She wanted to spend all day in the warren of dusty bookcases but after a few hours Korra and Opal were shooed out by Wan Shi Tong who had become sick of their constant laughing and bickering. They decided to sneak into the washrooms and hide there until dinner but, much to Korra’s disgust, they ended up being roped into mopping up the bathrooms by a toothless guard with a grudge against Korra.

Hours later, her arms and shoulders aching and trailing puddles of water, Korra trudged into the canteen with Opal. They got their food and collapsed at their usual table. Korra poked at her mystery-meat stew, her head in her hand. Opal was quietly trying to get the cigarettes she was owed from Jinora without letting Kya or Lin hear her. Neither of the women in question seemed to notice though. They were sitting opposite each other and, judging by Kya’s mischievous smirk and Lin’s flushed cheeks, something was going on underneath the table.

Opal’s tears had dried up quickly in the library and she’d started mercilessly teasing Korra about Asami again. That had made Korra worried about her again. She hadn’t seen Asami all day. She hoped she was okay. Not that she c … Oh, who was she trying to fool?! She cared. She cared a lot.

Losing hope that Asami would show up for dinner, Korra got to her feet, pushing her untouched food aside. She was barely out of the canteen when she felt a vice-like grip on her arm and the cold sting of sharp metal against the base of her spine.

“I’ve waited for this a long time, bounty hunter,” an icy voice hissed in her ear as the blade pressed harder against her skin. She recognised that cold, emotionless voice. This was bad. Very bad.

Korra pursed her lips and stuck out her jaw in weary frustration.

“I’ve just spent the last three hours mopping bathrooms barefoot, so forgive me if I skip the witty banter, Eska,” she sighed.

The knife, like a shard of ice, bit almost delicately into her flesh and she felt a bead of hot blood roll down her spine.

“You killed my father,” Eska hissed, her voice quavering slightly as the blade pressed harder. “I’m going to make you pay, you impudent little bitch!”

Korra sighed and clenched her jaw.

This was the last thing she needed. The warden and a good number of the guards were just waiting for a good reason to beat her senseless. But as Eska’s blade bit deeper, a smouldering anger began to well up inside Korra, an anger she couldn’t suppress. She glanced quickly down the corridor and saw that no one was around.

She lashed out suddenly, smiling as her elbow connected with the bridge of Eska’s nose with a satisfying crunch. Korra spun around and swatted the flashing blade away with her an almost casual backhand. Her fists flew with a blind fury but Eska had recovered from her initial shock and dodged Korra’s blows. Blood from her nose smeared across her face and her teeth gritted in seething anger, Eska leapt at Korra. Korra threw herself back and, in one fluid motion, wrapped her legs around Eska’s neck and flipped her across the corridor. She crashed into the opposite wall and broken glass from a smashed light fell like frozen rain around her.

Not wasting a moment, Korra ran across the cold floor, her bare feet light and soundless. Eska was picking herself up off the floor when Korra’s heel crashed into her chest. Korra spun in the air trying to land but Eska had grabbed her ankle and pulled her down so hard that everything flashed white for a second when her skull met the floor. Shit, she was fast. Korra hadn’t remembered her being this fast.

Her head spinning, Korra scrambled to her feet and was immediately yanked back by her hair. Korra twisted round and grabbed Eska’s wrist, lashing out with her other hand and wincing from the pain. Eska, her face still cold and harsh like permafrost, kicked Korra’s legs out from under her and slammed her face against the wall. Korra grunted and spat out a mouthful of blood and the molar that had come loose two days ago.

Eska smashed her down into the wall again. Blood was seeping into Korra’s eyes making it hard to see and Eska had pinned her arm behind her back, twisting mercilessly. Korra summoned her last reserves of energy and managed to extricate herself from Eska’s grasp, wincing at the sound of tearing hair. She twisted out of reach, leaving behind a torn out handful of hair in Eska’s fist. Korra thumbed away the trickle of blood that was dribbling out of her nose and wobbled on her feet. She raised her clenched fists to her chest and goaded Eska on with a bloody sneer.

Eska’s eyes were dark with anger as she lunged at Korra, her gleaming blade poised to strike. Korra flinched as a blur of motion entered her field of vision. She blinked and Eska was staggering backwards. Asami was standing over her, a dark smudge of Eska’s blood staining the metal of her clenched right hand.

She shot a quick glance at Korra and smiled cockily.

“My hero,” Korra chuckled through her swollen and bloodied lips.

Eska flung herself at Asami. Korra let out a frightened yell as Eska’s razor slashed at Asami’s face. A thin stream of red ran down Asami’s cheek. She hissed in pain and clamped her left hand over the gash as Eska slashed at her again. Asami managed to raise her right arm at the last minute to protect herself and the blade sunk through the silicone into the metal beneath. Eska pulled at the handle but the thin blade, stuck in Asami’s arm, snapped.

Asami kicked Eska away and flexed her metallic fingers experimentally. They made a strangled grinding sound and blue-electric sparks crackled and danced around her fingers but she managed to form a fist. Korra smiled as Asami’s cybernetic fist smashed into Eska’s jaw, sending her sprawling, a spray of blood spattering across the floor.

Asami’s tensed shoulders relaxed and she turned to flash a grin at Korra. Her left cheek and hand were smeared with blood and the jagged shard of Eska’s knife was jutting out of her whirring metal forearm. A few strands of midnight-black hair were matted with blood and she was breathing heavily. Her green eyes blazed at Korra with a fire so intense Korra felt herself melting.

Korra had never been so attracted to anyone before in her life.

Korra turned to Asami and put a hand on her arm as they hurried down the empty corridors.

“Thanks for saving my ass back there,” she said quietly. “Are you okay?”

Asami grinned at her from behind her blood-stained hand.

“I’ve had worse,” she said, shrugging her right shoulder so that her mechanical arm hummed. “Are _you_ okay?”

Korra had to admit she probably looked a good deal worse than Asami did. Her tongue was prodding at the gap in her teeth and she could barely see because of the blood that was drying in her eyes. She was fairly sure her nose was broken again too.

A klaxon sounded and they broke into a run. Eska’s unconscious body must have been found. A stern voice shouted over the loudspeakers, ordering all inmates back to their cells.

Back in the dark of their cell, the energy barriers crackling like distant lightning, Korra slumped down on her bed, exhausted.

“What the fuck?” she exclaimed, immediately bolting to her feet. She whipped away the sheets to see what she’d sat on. Asami looked over Korra’s shoulder at the bulging pillowcase that was sitting on her lumpy mattress.

“Open it,” she said, nudging Korra.

Korra tentatively opened the pillowcase and fished around inside it. She chuckled to herself when she pulled out a large bottle of cheap Scotch.

“Son of a bitch,” she smiled putting the bottle to one side and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a large folded piece of shiny paper. Korra handed the cigarettes to Asami who took two out, sticking one in her mouth and the other behind Korra’s ear. Korra felt the blood rise to her cheeks as Asami’s fingernails grazed her ear and she was almost glad her face was covered in gore. She began unfolding the glossy paper and spread it out on her bed. She and Asami looked down at the poster and a bikini-clad Ginger Gross smiled back at them, her sunset hair billowing in the wind.

Korra and Asami looked at each other, their eyebrows arched, before bursting into laughter.

Asami sighed and sank down onto the cold, hard floor and drew her knees up to her chest. She took a makeshift lighter made from foil gum wrappers and a battery out from under her mattress and lit her cigarette. When Korra had hidden the poster under her mattress, she opened the bottle and took a large gulp. The whisky stung the back of her throat and made her eyes water. It tasted like battery acid. She took another gulp and rubbed her sprained shoulder.

“So,” Asami said blowing twin contrails of smoke out of her nostrils, “is Eska your ex-girlfriend or what?”

Korra almost choked on the Scotch.

“Spirits, no!” Korra spluttered. Asami raised her eyebrows at her inquisitively. Korra was reluctant to open up to Asami. Opal had probably been right about Asami putting up barriers and shutting people out, but Korra was just as guilty of doing that.

Korra touched at her split lip gingerly before grabbing some toilet paper and crouching down in front of Asami. She pulled Asami’s hand away from her cheek, pretending not to hear her insistences that she wasn’t hurt. Korra wetted the tissue with the whisky and began to wipe away the blood that was drying around Asami’s eye and down her cheek.

Asami winced at Korra’s gentle touch and the sting of the alcohol but didn’t move away. Her cellmate’s face now clean of blood, Korra leant back to examine the cut. She traced the length of the wound with careful fingers. The slash started just above Asami’s arched eyebrow and tailed off a few inches down her cheek. The blade hadn’t cut too deep, in fact it had only just gotten through the skin and had left her eye completely unscathed. Korra was glad that it wasn’t as bad as it had looked but she suspected it would leave a faint scar.

Satisfied that her wound wasn’t anything to worry about, Korra’s gaze fluttered over Asami’s face. She suddenly realised that Asami was blushing. She quickly moved her hand away from Asami’s cheek and handed Asami the bottle.

“Might get infected but the alcohol should have helped clean it,” Korra mumbled. She sat down on her bed and ran her tongue through the throbbing gap in her teeth. “Asami … thanks, you were pretty awesome!”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner. Not to help, I just wish I could have seen you getting your butt handed to you!” Asami chuckled to herself before gulping down a mouthful of the Scotch. “Ugh,” she gasped as the alcohol burned down her throat, “a lot better than Kya’s toilet hooch though. I’ll give it that. That stuff’ll make you go blind!”

Asami climbed to her feet and shot Korra a wicked smile. She took a drag on her glowing cigarette and reached up onto the shelf above her bed. Asami pulled down a battered toolbox and sat back down on the floor with her back against the edge of her bed and her legs crossed. She unzipped her jumpsuit down to her waist and pulled her arms out of the sleeves.

“Hey,” Asami said, her eyes like green fire in the amber light of the energy-field, “could you help me with this?”

Korra didn’t know what she meant but she slid off the bed as if in a trance and knelt down in front of Asami, her gaze caught in those green eyes like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

“Yes?”

“Can you pull this bit off here?” Asami asked, pointing to a segment of the silicone casing of her shoulder and guiding Korra’s hand with hers. “Yeah, that’s it, pull on that bit. There should be a click and … yeah, you’ve got it.”

Korra lifted the section of plasticy casing away and Asami pulled a rusty screwdriver out of her toolbox.

“They let you have that?” Korra said in surprise, pointing at the screwdriver Asami was brandishing.

“I’m pretty much the only one keeping this heap of junk they call a prison in orbit,” Asami laughed. “That means I get some little privileges. Plus I haven’t stabbed anyone. Yet.”

She twisted her shoulder around to get a better look and tried to unscrew something.

“Is your arm okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. I just need to get that bit of knife out and check that nothing’s too badly broken,” Asami explained. Something in her arm clunked. “Ugh, I can barely see in this light. Could you pass me my glasses?”

Korra fumbled in the dark next to the bed where Asami had nodded and found her glasses. They’d been broken a few times and were being held together by several layers of insulation tape.

“Thanks,” Asami said, smiling as Korra brushed the matted hair out of her face and put the glasses on for her. Korra smiled back at her as she pushed the glasses up the bridge of Asami’s nose with her forefinger. She turned her attention back to her prosthetic but realised Korra was still looking at her. “What?” she asked, her cheeks turning red.

“Nothing! You … you’re really cute with glasses,” Korra mumbled, hanging her head so that her hair fell over her face.

Asami took another gulp of the Scotch and passed the bottle back to Korra, smiling shyly. She turned her attention back to her arm. “Ugh, I can’t do this one-handed. Can you just yank that?”

With Korra helping her, Asami managed to strip her arm of all the casing around her shoulder and with a loud whirring, the arm unfurled itself like a metal flower, revealing the red, mangled stump of her arm. Korra swallowed and felt tears rise up into her eyes. She didn’t know why. She’d seen worse injuries. Spirits, she’d _inflicted_ worse injuries! Korra just couldn’t understand how anyone could do something like this to someone as wonderful as Asami. Korra took a slug of the Scotch and hiccupped.

Asami laughed, set the arm down in her lap and began dissecting it carefully. She carefully laid out the delicate pieces of her mechanical arm on the ground next to her leg, telling Korra what each piece was and what it did. Korra listened attentively. She didn’t understand everything but nodded silently anyway, enjoying the sound of Asami’s voice but not trusting her own.

After grinding her cigarette out on the floor, Asami threw an oily rag at Korra. While Asami tried to pry the shard of metal out of the casing of her forearm, Korra began cleaning the fragmented pieces of Asami’s arm. Korra watched Asami swearing under her breath as she struggled to work the sharp splinter of Eska’s knife out of her arm. Her eyes kept being drawn back the scarred remains of her arm.

“You can ask if you want,” Asami said quietly.

Korra looked up from the stubborn fleck of dirt on the bi-lateral pressure … valve … thing (okay, so she had no idea what it was) that she was rubbing at. “Huh?”

“About my arm. You can ask,” Asami said without looking up from the jagged blade.

Korra put down the piece of machinery she was polishing. She looked at Asami, her green eyes hidden behind her hair. Korra slid the bottle to Asami. “You … you don’t have to talk about it.”

Asami took a deep breath and flicked her hair out of her face and took her glasses off. “It’s okay. I want to … I haven’t talked to anyone about it before.”

Korra felt like Asami was baring her soul to her yet again. She had already let Korra see her without her cybernetic arm and at her most vulnerable that morning. Korra crawled across the floor and sat down next to Asami.

“A few years ago,” Asami said quietly as if she were afraid to hear her own voice, “spirits, it really was _years_ ago! The Great Uniter had brought the Republic to its knees. The Colossus, Kuvira’s warship, had already destroyed over half our fleet. There was nothing we could do against it, our weapons were useless against The Colossus. We were losing hope.”

Korra had seen The Colossus once before. Kuvira’s enormous battleship was a thing of horrifying beauty. It had been retrofitted with an immensely powerful spirit-drive and its hull, made from metal harvested from Opal’s home planet, was rumoured to be absolutely impenetrable. Some said it could rip a moon into pieces. Korra had had a very minor run-in with The Great Uniter’s flagship a few months ago. It was part of the reason why she was trapped in this hellhole.

“I was the best fighter pilot in the entire United Republic, I guess I still am.” Asami continued.

“Big head,” Korra whispered, nudging Asami in the ribs. Asami smiled at her and elbowed her back.

“My dad is … was … the Republic’s greatest inventor. Or so he told everyone. Arrogance seems to run in the family,” she said, another smile flashing across her face. “During what we thought would be the last days of the war, he developed a …” Asami narrowed her eyes at Korra, “basically a laser that he thought would be able to break through a weak point in the hull.”

Asami sniffed and started pulling at the shard of metal in her arm again, picking at it like a scab.

“I flew us up in this tiny little ship, it was like a hummingbird it was so fragile. It didn’t even have its own life-support. We had to wear respirators and those clunky spacesuits that make you sweat out of every pore! It had to be small to avoid Kuvira’s radar and get into this tiny exhaust on The Colossus. We had a two minute window to get into position. I did it with forty-five seconds to spare. Just before he went out of the airlock, my dad smiled at me like he used to when I was a kid and he was going off to work. And … and he was burning through the hull when … It was a trap. They’d let us get close on purpose.”

Asami’s voice began to break. She was pulling furiously at the splinter of Eska’s blade and her knuckles had turned white from squeezing the pliers so hard.

“I couldn’t perform any evasive manoeuvres while dad was cutting through the hull’s shielding. I was taking hit after hit and I was pleading with him to come back. I dunno whether his radio was broken and he just couldn’t hear me but he just kept saying “I’m almost there, I’m almost there” over and over. I’d already lost two of my thrusters and the fuel tanks had been ruptured when his voice crackled over the radio. My dad, he …”

Asami dropped the pliers and ran her shaking hand through her hair. “He said: “Goodbye, Asami. I love you”. And … Then he … he cut his lifeline.”

Asami took a sip from the bottle and turned to Korra, her eyes moist and glistening. Korra placed a hand over Asami’s to stop the shaking. Asami slipped her fingers through Korra’s and gave her a grateful squeeze.

“He took control of the ship. He’d put some kind of override on the ship’s AI. I was already back in the atmosphere before I’d managed to smash the computer with a spanner and regain manual control. There wasn’t much I could do though. The ship was spinning out of control and the chutes had caught fire. If I hadn’t managed to restore the manual controls then I would have just been a smudge on the ground. I blacked out before I hit the ground but I remember being pulled out of the burning wreckage of the ship. My arm was broken in so many places that my bones were like gravel. The nerve damage was so bad … and the burns … they decided they had no other choice but to amputate it. I head-butted the field medic in the face and broke her nose when she tried to sedate me for the operation. I wanted to get back up there and save dad. I must have been delirious from the pain or something because I’d seen him … I’d seen his broken body floating in the black, his blood freezing and his suit torn to shreds and … and I was convinced that I could still save him.”

Korra was almost as close to tears as Asami was. She rested her head on Asami’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Asami sniffed and managed a half-hearted smile. “Don’t be.”

“What about … Do you have anyone else? Family, I mean.” Korra let go of Asami’s hand and passed her the bottle. She’d already had enough to make her dizzy and she thought Asami probably needed it more than she did.

Asami tipped her head back and shook her head while gulping the Scotch down loudly. She burped and blinked out the sting behind her eyes. She staggered to her feet, almost dropping the bottle as she climbed onto the bed.

“My mum died when I was still little,” Asami said as she reached up onto her shelf and passed a battered cardboard box down to Korra. “There’s a holo-photo of us in there.”

Asami curled up on her bed, nursing the bottle while Korra carefully lifted the lid off the box. She took out a flickering holo-photo of a plump, well-dressed man with impressive whiskers, a long-haired little boy looking just as stern as his father, and a regal-looking woman. She had a kind face and Asami’s eyes.

“She’s beautiful,” Korra said, looking up at Asami. “She looks like you.”

“Are you using my dead mother to hit on me?” Asami asked, her eyebrows arched in disbelief.

“What … No! I didn’t … I just meant that …” Korra stammered. She had been hitting on Asami just a little bit. Asami broke into laughter at the look on Korra’s face. Korra sucked her teeth and stuck her jaw out at her. “Asshole.”

Asami swung her legs around so that they were dangling down next to Korra. She leant down next to her and looked at the picture. “She was amazing,” Asami said quietly. “I remember she would sing to me while she brushed my hair. She was the first person I told that I was a girl. I was so worried she’d be angry that I started crying. I got snot everywhere! She pulled me into a hug, kissed my tears away, and told me that she loved me. We spent the rest of that week shopping for new clothes and eating ice cream on the couch.”

“She sounds lovely.” Korra handed the photo back to Asami and started wrenching at the stubborn piece of metal embedded in the cybernetic arm while Asami told her stories about her mother and father. After a lot of grunting and a string of hissed obscenities, Korra finally managed to pull the slither of metal out of the arm. “Fuck yes!” she shouted, interrupting Asami’s story.

Asami’s eyes lit up and she gave Korra a tight one-armed hug. The rest of the arm didn’t take too long to fix and Korra helped Asami get the arm back together and clamped into place.

“Spirits, I miss her!” Asami sighed suddenly as the dam finally broke and the torrent of tears began to flow down her cheeks. She wiped her nose on her vest. “I miss them both.”

Korra put a hand behind Asami’s neck and pulled her into a hug, careful not to touch her right shoulder, worried that she would hurt her.

She had no idea what to say to Asami so she just let her cry. She wondered if Asami had even let herself cry about her father’s death yet. She wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Asami had staggered out of that hospital as soon as she’d woken up, groggy from blood loss and painkillers, and gone right back to the frontline without shedding more than a couple of tears.

Korra felt Asami’s fingers running through her hair, pulling her closer as the tears began to ebb.

Asami’s fingers brushed over Korra’s ear and through the thick tangles cascading down over her back.

“What happened to your hair?” Asami asked, fingering a tuft of torn hair that stuck out behind Korra’s ear.

“Probably Eska,” Korra chuckled, raking her hair out of her face with her fingers. “She ripped a clump out before you swept in and saved me. It’s probably too long. I wouldn’t have needed your help if she hadn’t managed to grab it. Maybe I should cut it.”

“I’ll do it!” Asami exclaimed, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. “I can do it right now! I’ve got some cutters in my toolbox!”

Korra was just about drunk enough to agree.

Asami grabbed a pair of what looked like wire cutters out of her rusty toolbox and sat on the bed so that her legs were dangling over the side. Korra sat down on the floor between Asami’s legs and ran her fingers through her hair. She found the cigarette that Asami had tucked behind her ear and rolled it absentmindedly between her fingers. The paper was a strange shade of grey and badly rolled so that flakes of tobacco fell out every time she moved it.

Korra closed her eyes as Asami combed her fingers through her hair, working out the knots and tangles.

“So how do you want it?” Asami asked.

Korra shrugged. She was just enjoying the sensation of Asami’s fingers in her hair.

“How about a mullet?” Asami suggested, laughing.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Korra murmured. “I dunno. Just make me look badass, I guess.”

Asami ran her fingers experimentally through Korra’s hair and stopped after a few inches. “How about that?”

“Yeah … that’s fine,” Korra said playing with a strand of her fringe.

Asami began to cut her hair and Korra felt all the stress in her shoulders melt away. She leant her head back into Asami's lap and smiled to herself. Asami tutted and pushed her head forwards and carried on snipping. Korra chewed her lip and thought that she actually kind of liked being pushed around by Asami.

The steady rhythm of Asami’s fingers combing through her hair and the sound of metal on metal and hair being cut made Korra’s skin prickle. She brushed away the clippings of hair that had landed in her lap.

“I’ve just realised I have no idea what I’m doing!” Asami laughed.

“Just be careful of my ears,” Korra said, smiling. “I like them the way they are.”

Asami chuckled and tugged at one of Korra’s earlobes teasingly. Korra made a whiny growl in the back of her throat and wriggled, trying to free herself.

The pile of hair in her lap was building up and a stray curl had landed on her nose making her want to sneeze. She fiddled with the cigarette thoughtfully.

She couldn’t help thinking that Asami had completely and utterly bared her soul to her tonight.

All those defences and barriers Asami had put up to keep everyone out had been lowered for Korra. This morning she’d let Korra comfort her at her weakest and tonight she had let Korra see her without her prosthetic limb, she’d told her about her parents, about how she’d lost her arm, and she’d even trusted her enough to tell Korra she was trans.

Asami had let her in. She trusted her. It seemed only fair to Korra that she lower her own barriers too. She’d been so convinced that being the prison’s resident brooding, distant badass was all she needed to survive in here. She’d been wrong. If it hadn’t been for Asami, Korra would probably have lost more than just a tooth today.

“I’m a bounty hunter,” Korra said quietly. She wasn’t sure Asami had heard her over the sound of the clippers. “That’s what the fight with Eska was about,” she added, turning her head slightly, trying to see if Asami had heard.

Asami turned her head back around and tilted her head to the side, clipping at the hair behind her ear.

“A Cowboy, huh?” Asami said. “Or would it be Cowgirl in your case? Cowperson? Cowbeing? Cowent-”

“ _Bounty hunter_ ,” Korra said, pouting.

Asami flicked Korra’s ear with her metallic fingers and gently guided Korra’s head back so she could work on her fringe.

“Either way, you should probably keep that to yourself,” Asami mused. "Most of the people in this place are here because of Cowboys. Sorry, _bounty hunters_!" She took a moment to admire her work, had another gulp of Scotch, burped, and carried on snipping.

There was so much Korra wanted to tell Asami. She didn’t know where to begin. She wanted to tell her all about Raava and Aang and her beautiful, frozen home planet. Shit, she even wanted to tell her about Unalaq and Eska and Za-

Korra felt her chest contract and her cigarette fell out of her fingers onto the floor as the memory of his sword, shimmering like liquid metal, flashed in front of her eyes. She felt the panic begin to rise up. She wanted to reach out for Raava but knew there’d be no reply.

She focused instead on the sound of Asami’s breathing and the sound of the clippers and the tickle of the cut strands of hair that had fallen down the back of her vest. Asami’s gentle fingers in her hair were like an anchor.

“And I think … I’m … done.” Asami said as she trimmed the final tufts of hair.

The rising tide of panic washed away and Korra turned round to face Asami. She ruffled Korra’s hair and beamed down at her. Korra ran her fingers through her hair tentatively. Her hair was still long enough to just about cover her ears but she didn’t have to worry about her fringe getting in her eyes anymore. She shook her head vigorously making herself dizzy and Asami laugh.

She brushed her fingers through her messy hair and smiled up at Asami. “Thanks. I like it!”

Asami tucked a few fly-away strands of hair behind Korra’s ears.

Korra snatched the clippers out of Asami's hand. "Right! I'm gonna do you now!" she said, grinning devilishly.

Asami raised an eyebrow at her. "You're going to _do me_?"

"No, I, uh, I meant do your hair!" Korra spluttered. She was certain she must have turned bright red. "I was thinking a cute undercut or something."

"Uh-uh! There's no way I'm letting you near my hair with those things!" she laughed, taking the clippers back.

Asami's whole face seemed to light up when she laughed.

Before Korra could stop herself, she'd reached a hand up to Asami’s cheek, pulled her face down to hers, and locked her mouth over Asami’s. Korra’s tongue flickered over Asami’s bottom lip for an instant before she caught herself and pulled away suddenly, almost falling on her backside.

Asami was sitting bolt-upright, her eyes wide open in surprise, and a hand raised to her lips as if feeling where Korra had been only seconds before.

“Shit!” Korra laughed nervously as she clambered to her feet. “Too much to drink. I – I didn’t mean to ... I wasn’t … I obviously can’t handle my alcohol like I used to!”

Asami didn’t say anything. Korra wanted her to say something. Anything! Anything to break the awkward silence that was hanging over them now.

“I’d, um, better get to sleep now,” Korra mumbled. She climbed into bed and turned to face the wall.

‘Why the _fuck_ did you do that, Korra?’ she thought to herself. ‘You fucking idiot!’ She chastised herself over and over for nearly half an hour before a tap on her shoulder made her jump.

“Korra?” Asami’s voice whispered. Korra’s heart fluttered. She rolled over. Asami was standing next to Korra’s bed, her arms folded across her chest. Her eyes were brimming with tears and glistening in the dark.

Korra sat up. “Yeah?”

“I don’t want to be alone,” Asami said quietly, her voice breaking.

“You don’t have to be,” Korra whispered, reaching a hand out to Asami. “Not anymore.”

Asami took Korra’s outstretched hand and climbed onto the narrow bed next to her.

Korra pulled the blankets up over them and wrapped an arm around Asami’s waist, her forehead pressed against Asami’s chest. Asami buried her face in Korra’s close-cropped hair and pulled her closer with her left arm, her right tucked away under the pillows. She clung to the back of Korra’s vest just like she had that morning. She clung to her as if she were afraid that Korra was going to leave.

Korra slid her free arm up under the pillows and found Asami’s cold, metal fingers. Asami resisted the urge to flinch away. She reached out and, with a tentative, feather-light tough, stroked along the length of Korra’s thumb with her mechanical forefinger. Korra smiled, nuzzled Asami’s neck, and slipped her fingers through Asami’s.

Korra tried to keep the sleep at bay for as long as she could so she'd be able to enjoy this moment for as long as possible. She savoured the smell of Asami’s sweat and the softness of her hair and the warmth of her body pressed against hers.

She eventually drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face and the sound of Asami’s heart thumping in her ears.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter ended up getting kinda sad so this is a happy chapter. No bad stuff happens in this one, I promise!

Korra snorted and opened her eyes slowly, groaning loudly.

She was lying on her back, her mouth open and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. The gap in Korra’s teeth was throbbing and her shoulder was aching. She tried to sit up but something was pressing down on her chest making it impossible to get up. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and looked down.

Asami was lying fast asleep on top of Korra, her head resting on her chest and her arms wrapped around her. Her hair was spilt across her shoulders, over Korra’s chest, and a few stray strands were tickling Korra’s cheek. Korra smiled to herself and listened to Asami’s quiet snoring.

Korra thought Asami looked so beautiful in the faint amber glow that filtered into the cell. She played with a lock of Asami’s hair and smiled as a small trickle of saliva rolled out of the corner of her mouth and seeped into the grey fabric of Korra’s vest.

She watched her breath forming clouds of swirling condensation in the dark. Shivering, Korra wondered whether the cell had always been this cold. Korra tried to reach the blankets that had gotten caught up around their legs during the night. She couldn’t untangle them with Asami lying on top of her so she pulled Asami closer instead. Asami’s warm breath against her neck was a bit of comfort even if it did send shivers … good shivers … down her spine.

Her arm had gone to sleep and she winced, trying to move. She shifted a little under Asami, careful not to wake her. Grinning devilishly, Korra ran one of her cold, numb feet up Asami’s leg. Asami mumbled something in her sleep and squeezed herself closer against Korra.

Korra gazed longingly at Asami’s parted lips. The memory of last night flashed unbidden through her mind. Korra cringed and dragged her hand down her face. Why had she kissed Asami?! That was so fucking stupid!

Korra groaned to herself and gnawed her thumbnail. She ran through the events of last night, trying to focus through the haze that half a bottle of Scotch had left behind.

‘Maybe Asami didn’t mind’, Korra thought after a while. ‘I mean, she is sleeping on top of me! Still … not very classy, Korra. Not very classy at all.’

She sighed and decided to see if Asami mentioned it in the morning. Korra couldn’t help smiling to herself as she remembered the taste of Asami’s mouth and the feel of her lips on hers.

The cut down Asami’s face had started bleeding again during the night, Korra noticed. Her cheek and Korra’s vest were smudged with dried, reddish-brown blood. Korra stroked Asami’s cheek with careful, adoring fingers. She traced the constellations of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, avoiding the bloody gash on Asami’s face, anxious not to hurt her. A sleepy smile spread across Asami’s face and she hummed to herself like a contented cat.

Listening to Asami’s breathing and the quiet, incessant dripping of condensation running down the walls, Korra suddenly realised she had to pee. Badly. She craned her neck to see over Asami’s head and gazed achingly at the toilet. It seemed so far away and, as if she were trapped in a nightmare, it looked like it was getting further and further away with every second that passed. She chewed her lip and stroked back a dark lock of hair from Asami’s cheek. Spirits, she was beautiful but why did she have to lie on her when her bladder was about to burst?! And why was it so fucking cold?!

“Asami,” Korra whispered, stroking her hair.

Asami’s snoring didn’t stop. In fact, Korra thought it sounded like Asami had sunk into an even deeper sleep.

“Asaaaaami,” Korra whispered again, slightly louder this time and tapping her lightly on the shoulder. “Asami, I have to pee.”

Korra shook her ever so gently but Asami didn’t budge.

“Asami, I’m not kidding! I’m gonna wet myself and your knee in my bladder isn’t helping.”

Asami murmured something but still didn’t wake up.

Korra sucked her finger and shoved it into Asami’s ear.

“Asami!” Korra yelled.

Korra breathed a sigh of relief as Asami’s eyelids fluttered open. She made a whiny, grumbling noise and buried her face in the curve of Korra’s neck, her knee digging even harder into her bladder.

“I’ll push you off the bed if you don’t let me get up!” Korra said through gritted teeth.

Asami shook her head sleepily. “’Too cold,” she murmured. “Too tired.”

“Asami! Let me go!” Korra pleaded.

Korra poked Asami in the ribs making her squirm. She tried to sit up but Asami pulled her back down and cuddled up against her.

“This isn’t cute anymore,” she whined trying to push Asami away but it was no use. Her arms were sore and tired and Asami had her in an inescapable, snuggly death-grip.

Korra sighed resignedly.

“It’d serve you right if I peed on you,” Korra grumbled.

She crossed her legs and gnawed her lip, fiddling with a curl of Asami’s hair. She could feel Asami’s breath on her cheek and her chest rising and falling. Korra’s breathing was getting ragged and it was taking all her concentration not to wet herself.

Just when she thought she couldn’t hold on any longer, the energy barrier deactivated with a crackling hum and Bolin burst into the cell. He was still doing up the jacket of his uniform and in his hurry he’d forgotten his shirt and gun holsters.

“Sato!” he whispered at Asami’s empty bed.

He looked around in confusion when he realised Asami wasn’t there. Heaving a sigh of relief when he saw her curled up next to Korra, Bolin ripped the blankets off the bed. If Korra hadn’t been so convinced that she were going to explode, she would have noticed that he was blushing slightly, clearly worried that he was disturbing a pair of lovers.

Asami groaned and hugged Korra even tighter as the covers were pulled away from her legs.

“Inmate!” he said, trying and failing to sound authoritative. “Wake up!” he added urgently.

Asami let go of Korra. Grumbling drowsily, she rolled over and sat up.

“Agggh! Fucking thank you!” Korra gasped, jumping out of bed and running to the toilet. The seat was so cold it took Korra’s breath away when she sat down. She sighed loudly and smiled to herself as Bolin looked at the ceiling awkwardly.

“Sato!” Bolin whispered.

“What?!” Asami snapped, rubbing her temples as Bolin shook her gently. “And you don’t have to shout.”

“The heating system’s broken!” Bolin said, his breath fogging up in the cold air.

“Ugh, not again! Why can’t Varrick fix it?” she asked wearily.

“Because he’s an obnoxious drunk,” he said, smiling.

Asami chuckled and pushed herself up. She shrugged her unzipped jumpsuit up over her shoulders and worked her arms into the sleeves.

“Fine,” she sighed. “But I’m going to need her help,” Asami said, nodding at Korra who was now tying the sleeves of her jumpsuit around her waist.

“What? Why?” Bolin asked, surprised.

“My arm’s playing up. Look,” Asami said, waving her limp right arm at him. “I’m gonna need some help and we both know Varrick’s useless.”

Bolin sucked air in through his teeth and scratched the back of his head uncertainly. He was pretending not to have noticed the empty bottle of Scotch on Asami’s bed and the pile of hair on the floor. “Umm, I dunno.” He glanced at Korra and shrugged. “O-okay. I … I guess it should be alright. What’s the worst that could happen, right? Don’t answer that!”

“Great!” Asami said, turning her collar up against the cold. “She’ll need some work boots. Oh, and … I’m … I’m sorry about shouting at you the other day…”

“And swearing!” Korra added as she flushed the toilet.

“And swearing. I should have just _asked_ you to undo Korra’s cuffs. You’re alright for a guard.”

Bolin sniffed and shuffled awkwardly as Asami ruffled his hair. “’S’okay. Don’t … don’t worry about it. I’d be pissed too if my girlfriend were … y’know … not that I have a girlfriend in prison … or at all actually, I mean, obviously I … I’ll … just … wait … outside … until you’re ready,” he stammered before ducking out of the cell.

‘Brilliant!’ Korra thought to herself. ‘Even the guards think we’re a couple!’

“I thought your arm was okay,” Korra said softly.

“Oh, it’s fine!” Asami whispered, grinning wickedly and thumping Korra with her metallic fist. “But the last time I left you alone you got beaten up by your crazy ex!”

“I told you,” Korra hissed at her, “she’s not my ex!”

“Whatever you say!” Asami shot her a cheeky smirk and grabbed her toolbox off the floor. Korra followed her out of the cell, running a hand through her hair, trying to get used to its new length.

Bolin escorted them through the sleeping cellblock and up several levels, the gravity getting weaker and the cold getting more intense with every floor they passed. Korra blew on her hands and rubbed her arms. Her toes and fingers were blue from the cold. The condensation that covered the walls was turning to frost and their breath was leaving billowing clouds of mist behind them.

Bolin led them through such a complicated maze of sub-levels and crawlspaces and airlocks marked ‘Maintenance Personnel Only’ that by the time he left them, Korra had no idea where they were. She knew the chamber she’d found herself in must have been close to the axis of the satellite’s spin as the gravity was so weak that Korra was struggling to keep her feet on the floor. Other than that, she was at a complete loss as to where they were.

The walls of the dark chamber were lined with miles of rusty pipes and cables, dials and flickering lights, humming machinery and steaming vents. Korra looked around warily, half expecting a murderous alien to leap out of the shadows at her.

There was no alien in sight but a pair of feet was sticking out of an access hatch in the far wall. Asami marched over to them and kicked the feet aggressively. She smirked as the sound of a skull hitting metal and stifled swearing echoed out of the hatch.

A gangly man with wild hair crawled out of the hatch and sat down heavily, rubbing his head. He seemed to buzz with nervous energy and smelt strongly of alcohol. It didn’t look like he’d shaved or even combed his hair in weeks. His green uniform was stained and torn and Korra noticed he had a striped pyjama-shirt on under his unzipped, padded jacket.

“What was that for?!” he asked, checking his fingers for blood, his face red and his moustache twitching.

“Because, Varrick, repairing crap like this is your job and it’s like four in the fucking morning,” Asami growled, clenching her fists. “And I have a hangover!”

“Well, so do I!” Varrick said, sounding far too enthusiastic. “No need to take it out on me! My callouses hurt enough as it is! My old assistant never used to kick me!”

“I don’t want to know about your disgusting feet, Varrick! And I am not your assistant! Just … what’s wrong with her this time?” Asami asked, kneeling down next to the hatch and peering inside.

“It’s the, uh, the … the thing. Definitely the thing,” Varrick mumbled, waving his index finger at the access hatch. “Possibly the left thing too.”

“What thing?” Asami asked, rapidly losing her patience.

Varrick shrugged and made a sound like ‘I don’t know’ in the back of his throat.

“What do you mean you don’t know?!” Asami shouted, pinching the bridge of her nose and her face turning red with seething anger. It was hard to believe that this was the same woman who had been dribbling on Korra’s vest a few minutes ago. Korra wondered to herself what angry sex with Asami would be like. She smiled to herself and zoned out, chewing her lip.

“What do I look like to you?” Varrick asked, shouting even louder than Asami had and jolting Korra out of her daydreaming. “Some kind of tech-genius machine-whisperer freak?”

Asami and Varrick carried on arguing loudly while Korra shivered and tried to remember what it felt like to be warm. She wanted to be back in bed. Preferably with Asami’s arms wrapped around her. Or her legs.

Behind her, the airlock hissed open and Bolin squeezed his broad shoulders through the narrow doorway. He passed Korra a pair of scuffed work boots. She smiled gratefully and pulled them on, fumbling at the laces with numb fingers. They fit pretty well and she wiggled her toes in the boots happily when she’d finally gotten them laced up.

“Thanks,” she said, running her hand through her hair. It was a habit from constantly having to push it out of her eyes when it had been longer. It seemed pretty stupid to her now.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bolin said distractedly, standing next to her and watching Asami and Varrick as their quarrelling reached a shrieking crescendo.

“Is this … is this _normal_?” Korra asked, waving vaguely at the pair.

“Normal? Probably not,” Bolin said wearily. “But usual? For these two? Umm, yes … unfortunately.”

Varrick was ranting and swearing loudly and Asami was waving a heavy spanner at him.

“Should we be worried?” Korra asked.

“Nah, they tend to tire themselves out after a bit,” Bolin said reassuringly. “I try not to get too worried unless she gets the screwdriver out.”

Korra thought it was best not to wait until Asami decided to stab Varrick. She coughed loudly and looked sternly at the pair of bickering mechanics. Asami turned to look up at her like a guilty puppy, the angry redness in her cheeks fading. She straightened up and ran her cybernetic hand through her hair.

“Remind me again why you can’t do this,” Asami sighed wearily, glaring at Varrick and buckling his tool belt around her waist.

“Are you kidding me?” Varrick gasped, sweeping his arms dramatically. “Have you seen this beautiful face? I can’t risk going down into deep, dark, damp tunnels of certain doom!”

Asami rolled her eyes and put a hand on Korra’s shoulder. “You up for it?” she asked, nodding to the gloomy access hatch, her hair swirling like smoke in the low gravity.

Korra nodded resolutely and took the torch Asami handed her.

“Rather you than me!” Varrick said, pulling a flask out of his jacket pocket and taking a swig. “It’s probably swarming with catgators down there!”

“Catgators?” Korra asked, perplexed. She regretted asking almost immediately.

“The horrifying, terrifying and unholy spawn of a mutant catfish and a radioactive alligator, their genetic material spliced together by evil scientists gone mad with power and let loose into the bowels of space stations all across the sector,” Varrick yelled, waving his hands melodramatically. “They wait in the dark ready to pounce! They prey on the weak and unsuspecting, driven only by their insatiable bloodlust and ravenous hunger for human flesh!”

Asami, Korra, and Bolin looked at each other in stunned silence.

“Right,” Asami muttered under her breath after a few moments. “Thank you for that, Varrick. You’ve been _utterly_ useless as usual.”

She handed Korra her toolbox, held a torch between her teeth, and clambered through the access hatch. Korra watched her disappear into the dark and, with a final glance at Varrick, crawled in after her.

“Be careful, my little turtle-ducks!” Varrick called out. “Go do the thing! Make your Uncle Varrick proud!”

“Shut up, Varrick!” Asami’s voice echoed out of the dark.

The shaft was barely wide enough for Korra to fit her shoulders in and it seemed to soak up every ray of light from their torches.

“Hey, how come she gets an assistant?” Korra heard Varrick ask Bolin grumpily as she followed Asami down the tight shaft on all fours.

They crawled through the narrow tunnel for what felt like miles, their torches sending flickering shadows dancing around them. The low gravity meant they could push themselves along and glide for a few seconds before floating back down onto the rungs set in the metal walls of the shaft. Korra had expected her sore muscles would get tired quickly but it was surprisingly easy so long as she forgot about the dark and the cold and frighteningly small space.

Complex and tangled knots of pipes and wires were running down either side of the shaft and every so often Asami would check the serial numbers on pieces of machinery built into the walls of the dark tunnel. She eventually found the one she was looking for and showed Korra where to shine her torch.

The guilt about kissing Asami last night was still nagging at Korra. She watched Asami chewing on her lip as she concentrated on her work. Korra wondered whether she ought to say something.

Asami must have felt Korra staring at her because she looked at her inquisitively as she unscrewed a section of panelling. She raised her eyebrows at Korra, the torch between her teeth making it impossible to talk.

“Asami …” Korra said barely above a whisper.

“Mmm?”

“I … I don’t think I actually apologised for last night.”

Asami cocked her head to one side in confusion as she pulled the panel away from the wall revealing a mass of complicated machinery.

“For kissing you,” Korra added quietly, her voice reverberating all around her and echoing down the shaft.

Asami took the torch out of her mouth and frowned.

“Korra, sweetie, you’ve got nothing to apologise for!”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!” Korra blurted out. She couldn’t work out whether Asami was cross or embarrassed or just pretending it didn’t happen. Or did she expect a more heartfelt apology? Was she just trying to spare Korra’s feelings?

… Had she liked it?

Asami rolled her eyes and wriggled around to face Korra.

“Anyway, I’m sorry,” Korra mumbled.

“You shouldn’t be,” Asami murmured. She leant forwards and brushed her lips against Korra’s, though in the dark, cramped shaft, Korra’s nose got more of the kiss than her lips. “There, we’re even now,” Asami said, smiling wryly and turning back to her work.

Korra’s cheeks were burning and her palms had started sweating despite the bitter cold.

Something orange and furry scurried past her face and Korra screamed, the awkward silence shattering. She recoiled in fright and banged her head, stars flashing in front of her eyes.

“Korra! Are you okay?” Asami asked, dropping her tools and squirming around in the cramped tunnel. She put a warm hand to Korra’s cheek and shone the torch at her. “Is something wrong? What happened?”

“Yeah, no, I’m fine,” Korra gasped, breathing heavily and rubbing her head. “Just a rat or a ferret or something.”

Asami sighed in relief and took her hand away.

She wormed her way back to where she’d stripped the panelling away and grabbed the screwdriver that was spinning in the air, suspended as if by a string in the low gravity.

“You were saying that you were a bounty hunter last night,” Asami said.

“Yeah,” Korra said, slowly regaining her composure. The tiny shaft and the suffocating dark were starting to get to her. It was beginning to feel like a tomb so she was glad she was able to talk to Asami to take her mind off it.

“Were you any good?” Asami asked cheekily.

“I’m the fucking best!” Korra laughed. “Couldn’t you tell by the way I got my ass kicked by Eska?”

Korra wondered how Eska was for a second. She frowned, surprising herself by the sudden concern for her.

“I figured you were probably pretty crap at your job,” Asami grinned wickedly, poking Korra in the ribs with her foot. “I mean, a good Cowboy wouldn’t have gotten herself arrested, would she?”

“How do you know I didn’t get myself arrested deliberately? It could be all part of a genius master plan to break into prison and collect a bounty on one of the inmates!”

“Is it?”

“Not even a little.”

Asami’s laughter ricocheted down the shaft.

“So what _is_ a girl like you doing in a place like this?” she asked.

“I got shot down on Si Wong,” Korra said quietly. “I might have accidentally broken a war criminal out of prison.”

“You did what?!” Asami pulled her head out of the machinery she was taking apart and looked at Korra in disbelief. “And just gonna throw it out there: I’m technically a war criminal too so if you’re thinking of having another go then I’m totally up for it! Sorry, what happened?”

“I kinda … snuck onto The Colossus and, umm … kidnapped someone.”

“Shit!” Asami laughed. “Who?”

Korra took a deep breath.

“Zaheer.”

Asami’s eyes widened in surprise. “You went after the _leader_ of the Red Dragon-Lotus Syndicate on your own?! Why?!”

“For the bounty,” Korra shrugged. “The price on his head was the biggest I’d seen in my life but Kuvira had already taken him into custody before I could find him.”

“So, what? You just … decided you were gonna kidnap him and claim the reward for yourself?”

“It sounds like a worse plan than it actually was,” Korra said defensively.

Asami laughed in disbelief. “What happened?”

“Well,” Korra said, “I’d stolen a stealth suit a while before and I used it to stowaway on one of The Colossus’ supply shuttles. I found Zaheer’s cell and, umm, ‘sedated’ him.”

Asami knitted her eyebrows together inquisitively.

“I kicked him in the face before he knew I was there!” Korra smiled mischievously. “I stuffed him into a spacesuit and carried him on my shoulders. It was all going according to plan until the alarms sounded. They’d tagged him with some kind of tracer so it wasn’t long before they found me even with the stealth suit. I took a shortcut through some kind of R&D weapons lab or armoury and grabbed this really badass sword. I’d fought off about half the Empire’s army and gotten to the main hangar bay before Kuvira showed up.”

Korra could still feel the burning scars lancing down her back that The Great Uniter had given her.

“I knew that wasn’t a fight I could win so I turned tail and ran. Raava hacked the overrides on the hanger bay doors and ...”

“Raava?” Asami’s voice echoed out of the machinery she was waist-deep in. “Your girlfriend?”

“My _ship_ ,” Korra said, thumping Asami’s leg. “She was waiting for us just out of scanning range so we had to space-dive. I threw Zaheer’s unconscious body out of the hangar into space, gave Kuvira the finger, and jumped out after him. Kuvira had slashed my suit but some of the thrusters were still working. I managed to grab Zaheer and get close enough to Raava for her to intercept us before I passed out.”

“Wait!” Asami said in disbelief. “You did a space-dive with a compromised suit _and_ a passenger? An _unconscious_ passenger?!”

“Yup.”

“That is insane!”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘badass’.”

“How did you not freeze or … or burst?!”

“I crossed my fingers and prayed! I had frostbite all down my back and I think some blood vessels in my eye burst. Actually I think the frostbite was what stopped me from bleeding out. Anyway, I was feeling like crap but I still woke up before Zaheer. Spirits know what kind of torture they’d put him through if I was in better shape than he was! I was already stitching myself back up when he finally woke up. He just sat there in the dark, scowling at me. Really creeped me out. Maybe I shouldn’t have tied him up in the shadowy corner where he’d look intimidating,” Korra laughed, her voice quavering slightly.

Making jokes was pretty much the only way Korra could relive this without having another panic attack.

“I decided to lay low on Si Wong for a while until the Empire’s pursuit ships lost track of us. That’s when …”

She took a deep breath and tried to calm her shaking hands. Asami had opened up to her last night and she wanted to do the same for Asami. Perhaps telling Asami would make it hurt less. At the very least she’d have someone that she l… _liked a lot_ to comfort her.

Worried by Korra’s sudden silence, Asami had extricated herself from the depths of the machinery she’d squeezed into.

“I dunno how he got free … I was flying through a sandstorm on manual so I didn’t see him until it was too late. I didn’t even hear anything until … I looked down and the end of the sword I’d stolen was sticking out of my chest …”

She heard Asami gasp under her breath. Korra pulled the collar of her vest down and showed Asami the pale scar that stood out like a bolt of lightning against her dark skin in the dim torchlight. Asami traced its length with careful, cold fingers, greasy with engine oil.

“He missed my spine and lungs by some miracle. He pulled the blade out and I managed to reach my gun. My fingers were wet with my own blood and I could barely hold the gun let alone aim it. I shot at him as the airlock opened. I don’t know if I even hit him but …”

Even after all these months, when she closed her eyes, she still sometimes saw those vicious eyes scowling at her through the tangled, silver hair.

“He grabbed me and threw me down, holding my head out of the airlock …”

She could still remember the sandstorm ripping at her face and the bite of Zaheer’s sword in her shoulder.

Her heart was thumping in her ears and her hands were shaking as the memory of his ice-cold blade and even colder glare cut through her. There’d been a moment of stalemate then as Korra had held her gun up to his chest and he had dug his blade into her shoulder, their eyes locked and their pulses racing.

“I shot him and … there was an explosion. I don’t know if the bullet hit something inside Raava or if we hit something in the storm …” Korra was struggling to breathe and only Asami’s hand on her shoulder kept her from losing control.

“We were both thrown from the ship. I woke up in the sand, choking on my own blood and the suns burning my eyes. I think my ribs were broken and every breath I took felt like my last. I was … I thought I was going to die, Asami.” Korra swallowed hard to keep down the lump that was rising in her throat.

Asami held her close and stroked Korra’s hair, her mechanical arm gleaming in the torchlight.

“I don’t know how he did it, maybe he’d built some kind of anti-gravity tech into his body, maybe they did something to him, maybe I was just seeing things … but I could have sworn I saw him … floating.”

Nearly every night since then, Korra had dreamt of that moment. Even after the nightmares faded in the mornings, she could still vividly remember the way the desert sand had swirled around him and his silver hair whipping across his face as he hung there, suspended in the air a few feet above her.

His arms had been outstretched and the twin suns of Si Wong burning behind him had cast him in shadow so that he looked like a ferocious bird of prey. His sword had been dripping with Korra’s blood making it look like liquid metal. He’d gazed down at her lying in the sand with a look that Korra couldn’t quite fathom. The faint flicker of an animalistic smile had betrayed just how much he was relishing in the cruel, unadulterated violence. But beneath that, Korra couldn’t help thinking that he’d looked almost genuinely sad. She wasn’t sure which scared her more.

As Korra’s breathing calmed, Asami let go.

“You want to have a cry?” Asami asked.

Korra shook her head, wiping away the tears that were rising in her eyes.

“He left me there … probably figured I’d die soon enough. I would have if Raava hadn’t found me. She took me to this research facility a few miles away. They managed to stitch me back up.”

Korra left out the part where she’d kicked down the door, shot two security officers, and asked them nicely at gunpoint to help her while she bled all over their floor.

“They realised a little too late that the blade had been poisoned. They got the crap out but it had done enough damage to seriously fuck me up. I was out of it for weeks. When I finally woke up, I couldn’t walk, I could barely even sit up. They did all kinds of muscle therapy on me and finally decided it was psychosomatic. I think they’d gotten tired of me by then and wanted to get rid of me because they filled me up with painkillers and crap and pretty much told me to fuck off.”

Asami stroked Korra’s cheek tenderly.

“I was back on Zaheer’s trail when I was spotted by an Earth Empire patrol. They’d recognised Raava’s energy signature and they shot us out of the sky. That’s when they arrested me. I don’t know what happened to Raava. I don’t think they found her but I didn’t get a chance to see how badly damaged she was.”

Korra sniffed and wiped her eyes. Droplets of water floated off her lashes and glistened in the light of the torches.

“Sorry,” she whispered, smiling apologetically at Asami and laughing through her tears. “You didn’t want to hear all that crap.”

“Yes I did,” Asami said sternly, wiping the tears away from Korra’s face. “I’m never going to let anyone hurt you like that again,” she promised quietly.

Korra laughed but part of her believed Asami. The memory of Zaheer’s scarred face and gleaming, blood-tarnished katana didn’t fill her with quite so much dread anymore.

“Do you know what’s broken yet?” Korra asked, blushing and waving at the machinery Asami had been poking around in.

Asami slowly took her hand from Korra’s cheek.

“I think something’s chewed through some of the power cables in there. Probably your little rat friend,” she laughed. Korra shuddered and floated closer to Asami.

“Can I help?” Korra asked quietly.

“Uh, yeah actually,” Asami said thoughtfully. “When the power to the fuel pumps went off the emergency cut-offs kicked in and shut everything down. I should be able to reroute the power and get the pumps working again but I’m going to have to bypass all the automatic failsafes. There’s a valve in there to the right …”

She guided Korra’s hand inside the complicated network of pipes and power cables with a gentle grip on her wrist until her fingers found the small lever.

“You feel it?” Asami asked.

Korra could feel the cold lever and Asami’s warm breath on her cheek. “Mm-hmm.”

“I’m going to need you to turn it when I reconnect the power since the failsafes aren’t going to be working for a while.”

“Okay, got it,” Korra said though she wasn’t exactly sure what she was supposed to do.

Asami squeezed herself past Korra and wormed her way into the depths of the machinery, an acetylene torch in one hand, a wrench in the other, and a screwdriver between her teeth. She all but vanished into the mass of pipes so that all Korra could see of her were her legs.

Sparks began to fly and Korra shielded her eyes with her free hand. Her stomach growled, echoing down the shaft. She wanted breakfast.

It was hard to keep track of time in the perpetual gloom of the maintenance shaft but Korra guessed that it was about forty miutes before Asami’s voice finally rang out through the darkness and tangle of pipes.

“Right,” she said. “Now, Korra!”

Korra pulled on the stiff lever and a distant rattling echoed up through the pipes. There was a strangled gurgle and a sudden rushing noise like a waterfall and Asami screamed, kicking her legs violently.

“KORRA!” Asami howled, spluttering and squirming as a flood of engine oil filled the air. “WRONG ONE! TURN IT OFF!”

“Oh, shit!” Korra hissed as she yanked the lever.

Asami’s desperate screaming suddenly got louder. “STOP IT! YOU’RE MAKING IT WORSE!”

Korra fumbled around in the dark, desperately trying to find the right lever.

“IT’S IN MY NOSE!” Asami’s voice screeched over the sound of rumbling pipes, surging engine oil, and Korra’s laughter.

In a last-ditch attempt to shut off the jet of oil, Korra grabbed a spanner from Asami’s tool belt and hit the valve with all her strength.

The fountain of oil trickled to an eventual halt.

“I can’t get out!” Asami yelled, jerking her legs wildly. “Korra, stop laughing! I’m stuck!”

Korra choked back her laughter and pulled on Asami’s legs, bracing herself against the massive pipes.

“Pull!” Asami shouted.

“I am pulling!”

“Pull harder!”

“If I pull any harder your legs are gonna come off!”

Korra finally managed to tug Asami free and they collapsed into each other’s arms in the cramped maintenance shaft.

Asami was covered in thick, black oil and she was glaring at Korra, her green eyes blazing in the torchlight.

“It’s not funny,” Asami grumbled, fighting back her laughter.

“I’m not laughing,” Korra said, sniggering.

Asami wiped her grubby hands all over Korra’s face, smearing her with grease.

“Did you get it fixed?” Korra asked.

“I think so,” Asami said uncertainly. “It was a little hard to be sure when I was drowning in fucking engine oil!”

Korra laughed. “Sorry!”

“Let’s get out of here,” Asami sighed. “I need an hour-long shower and breakfast.”

“Sounds perfect.”

They crawled back up the pitch-black tunnel (Or was it down? It was hard to tell in the low gravity). Korra thought she felt a slight warmth creeping through her and she was absolutely sweltering by the time they squeezed out of the maintenance shaft. Bolin was waiting for them, grinning. Varrick was asleep in the corner.

“How’d it go?” Bolin asked.

Korra and Asami looked at each other and shrugged.

“Feels warmer already,” he said smiling. “You’ve missed breakfast but if you hurry you might be able to grab something before Pema throws away the leftovers.”

As they made their way back to their cellblock, Korra rubbed her aching limbs and groaned. Every inch of her body was hurting from spending so long in the cramped confines of the shaft. Asami looked even worse, soaked in filth and squelching along wearily.

They trudged into the empty bathroom and Korra slipped out of her grimy jumpsuit. She threw it into one of the sinks, pulled off her boots, vest, and underwear, and leant against a shower stall.

“We can go get some new clothes after we eat,” Asami said, kicking off her boots and tugging pathetically at the zip of her now black jumpsuit. She groaned dejectedly and looked at Korra pleadingly. “My zipper’s stuck,” she whined.

Korra laughed and waved Asami closer.

It was hard for Korra to picture her as a battle-hardened rebel fighter as Asami shuffled over to her and hung her head, her oil-slick hair falling over her face to hide the blush that was rising across her cheeks at the sight of Korra’s naked body.

Tugging at the stubborn zipper, Korra pulled it down over the swell of Asami’s chest and down her stomach to her navel. With careful, almost worshipful hands, Korra undressed Asami. She peeled off the sodden jumpsuit, letting it fall at Asami’s feet. Asami’s cheeks turned an even deeper shade of red as Korra lifted her vest up over her head but she didn’t stop her.

Korra kept her eyes fixed on Asami’s the whole time, ignoring her nakedness. Asami smiled shyly as Korra knelt down in front of her and pulled her underwear down her legs. Brushing her hair out of her eyes, Asami stepped out of her undies. Her blush spread down her neck and across her chest.

Korra got back to her feet and chewed her lip. Even when she was filthy with engine oil, Asami took Korra’s breath away. _Especially_ when she was filthy with engine oil.

Korra dragged herself away from Asami and climbed into a shower, closing the curtain behind her. She shuddered as the shower rattled into life and ice-cold water washed over her face. Oily water trickled down her body and she ran her hands through her hair.

“Fuck!” she heard Asami hiss from the shower stall next to hers. “I think some wanker’s done a crap in the shower!”

Korra laughed and scrubbed at her grimy, grease-smudged skin. “You can share mine,” she said, only half jokingly.

Korra’s heart missed a beat as the shower curtain was pulled open and Asami squeezed in next to her.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling shyly, her left arm over her chest and clearly already regretting her rashness.

Asami stood under the gurgling showerhead and began covering herself in a thick lather of soap. In the cramped shower stall, they kept accidentally elbowing each other and rubbing shoulders, every moment of contact like shocks of static to Korra.

Korra watched out of the corner of her eye as the water, cascading over them, ran in murky rivulets down Asami’s body. Korra was blushing like a sunset but she felt oddly comfortable being naked in front of Asami. She raised a tentative hand and wiped away a smudge of oil from Asami’s cheek that she’d missed.

Korra took the washcloth from Asami and checked to make sure she wasn’t uncomfortable. Asami smiled at her, nodding slightly and letting the arm that had been shielding her breasts from view fall away. With gentle, reverent hands, Korra began washing her. She dabbed delicately at her skin with the soapy cloth, following the ridge her collarbone, the curve of her breasts, down her taut stomach and strong arm.

“Y’know,” Korra said quietly, rinsing the cloth out, her voice barely audible over the spluttering shower, “my nose got most of that kiss earlier. I don’t think it really counted.”

Korra stole a quick, nervous glance at Asami. She was biting her lip and fighting a smile.

“I should probably kiss you again then,” Asami said, blushing and watching the cloudy, soapy water swirling down the drain. “I mean, we’re not really even yet, are we?”

“It’d be awkward otherwise,” Korra whispered as Asami lifted her eyes to hers and leant closer.

“It’s only fair,” Asami agreed, her mouth only a breath away from Korra’s and her fingertips dancing over Korra’s cheek. Her hand was shaking nervously, excitedly.

Korra dropped the washcloth and her knees nearly collapsed under her as Asami’s lips touched hers. She put a hand on Asami’s waist and kissed back, prying Asami’s mouth open with her tongue.

Asami pulled away, her face still less than an inch away from Korra’s.

“You kissed back,” Asami said, not taking her eyes away from Korra’s lips.

They were so close, Korra could feel Asami’s breath tickling her lips.

“I did?”

“You did. I’m going to have to kiss you again now.”

“It’s only fair,” Korra whispered breathlessly.

“It’s only fair,” Asami murmured into Korra’s mouth.

Korra hummed as the sweet heat of Asami’s breath filled her mouth.

Asami sucked and nibbled on her bottom lip and Korra winced slightly. Her lips were still sore from her many fistfights over the last few days but Asami was gentle and the slight sting of pain just made her soft lips and tender caresses all the sweeter.

“Am I hurting you?” Asami murmured, her nose brushing Korra’s.

Korra shook her head and pulled her face back to hers, her hands roaming through Asami’s sodden hair. She was feeling really, truly alive for the first time since Zaheer had left her for dead with a gaping hole in her chest. She wanted this moment to last forever.

By now they’d forgotten to keep track of who was supposed to be kissing who.

Without breaking the kiss, Asami pinned her to the side of the shower stall and ground her hips against Korra’s. Korra stood on her tiptoes and arched her back. Asami grasped the edge of the stall with her cybernetic hand. She let her other hand slide down from Korra’s cheek to her neck, feeling her fluttering pulse beneath her gentle fingers.

Sweat was running down Korra’s back despite the freezing water that was pouring over them both. Water dripped off the end of her nose and she had to keep her eyes clenched tightly shut to keep the water out. The foamy soapsuds meant Asami’s skin was silky and soft to Korra’s touch and she smelt of engine oil and rust and tasted like heaven.

Korra moaned into her mouth and guided Asami’s hand away from her throat and down between her legs.

“So this is why you two missed breakfast!”

Korra and Asami froze, Korra’s bottom lip between Asami’s teeth and Asami’s hand between Korra’s legs.

“You could have at least kept it in your pants for a few more days,” Kai said grumpily from behind the shower curtain. “I owe Opal ten packs now!”

Asami let go of Korra’s lip.

“We won’t tell her if you don’t,” she said hopefully.

There was a moment of silence punctuated only by the sound of the gurgling shower, the wet squelching of Kai’s mop, and the girls’ ragged breathing. Korra and Asami looked at each other, both their faces flushed and red. Neither of them dared move.

“Fine,” Kai said at last. “But if I catch you two at it again before the week’s up there’s gonna be hell to pay!”

Wringing wet and breathing heavily, Korra and Asami tumbled out of the shower stall. They grabbed some towels and blushed, mortified at having been caught in the act. Kai was mopping by the sinks and glowering at them.

They glanced at each other and watched as each other’s ears turned red from embarrassment.

“The water’s still running,” Kai said. He was fighting a smile now, looking fixedly at the end of his mop and the puddles on the tiled floor.

“Oh!” Asami climbed back into the shower and turned it off as Korra stood awkwardly, clutching her towel to her chest and cold water pooling at her feet. Korra could feel a wetness running down the inside of her thigh that wasn’t from the shower.

Kai refused to leave as they hurriedly dried themselves off and pulled their filthy clothes back on.

Korra grabbed all of Asami’s tools and they tried to slip out quietly without Kai noticing. Asami’s zipper got stuck again but in her hurry to leave she gave up and slunk out of the bathroom with Korra, her jumpsuit flapping open.

Out of sight in the corridor, Korra fixed Asami’s zipper for her.

“Get a room!” Kai shouted and Korra whipped her hands away from Asami’s jumpsuit, startled.

“We had a room,” Korra grumbled under her breath as they made their way to the canteen.

The canteen was empty except for a few inmates working in the kitchen and cleaning the tables. The smell of dinner cooking was already drifting through the air. They sat down opposite each other at one of the tables, avoiding eye contact and fidgeting nervously. Asami cracked the knuckles of her cybernetic hand and Korra gnawed the inside of her cheek.

“So …” they both said at the same time, looking up at each other.

They laughed at the shared embarrassment and blushed, running their hands through damp hair.

Korra was on the verge of making a terrible joke – maybe something about the crappy service at this restaurant or about how this was like an awkward first date – when Pema came out of the kitchen, smiling and wiping her hands on a dishcloth.

“You kids just think you can come traipsing in here whenever you want?” she sighed, her tired eyes smiling warmly. “Breakfast finished half an hour ago!”

Asami made puppy dog eyes at her and smiled sweetly. “Aww, come on, Pema. We’ve been fixing the heating all morning. It was horrible. We had to crawl through this tiny little shaft and put up with Varrick and Korra got attacked by a rat.”

“Asami nearly drowned.”

“I nearly drowned.”

Pema rolled her eyes and ruffled Asami’s hair. “Oh, all right then.”

Korra and Asami were soon wolfing down hunks of bread slathered in butter, cold scrambled eggs, slightly singed, oily hash browns, and Pema even let them have a pot of yoghurt each.

As Korra was gnawing on the crusty heel of her bread, she felt Asami’s foot glide up her shin. She looked up from her bread and gulped. Her heart began to flutter as Asami’s foot climbed higher and higher and she turned redder and redder.

Asami was licking the yogurt from her spoon and watching Korra squirm, smiling malevolently.

“Are …” Korra began, her voice breaking. She coughed and started again. “Are we gonna get some new clothes now?”

“Yup, finish up your food and we’ll swipe some from the laundry. Those dryers are always breaking so we’ll have a good enough excuse to spend the rest of the day there if you want.” Asami scraped the last of the yogurt out of her pot and took her foot away from Korra’s thigh. Korra had to fill her mouth with potatoes to hide the whine that rose in her throat at the loss of contact. “The noise of the dryers will cover the sound of you begging me to let you come.”

Asami picked up her toolbox, thanked Pema, and strode out of the canteen.

The blood rising in her cheeks, Korra munched on her breakfast thoughtfully for a few moments before jumping up and running after Asami.

Just like last time, Korra was almost knocked off her feet by the heat and cacophony that filled the laundry. Asami had been right about the dryers always breaking, Korra was glad to see. Two of them were spewing smoke and grumbling noisily.

While they were ferreting through a pile of clean jumpsuits, they were cornered by Opal who was beaming from ear to ear. She pulled them into a tight hug. When she finally let them go, she was pretending to hold back tears of pride.

“What was that for?” Korra asked, shocked.

“I’m ten packs richer now because of you randy fuckers!” Opal laughed.

“Who told you?” Asami asked, despairingly.

“Kai told Jinora, Jinora told Ikki, Ikki told Pema, Pema told Kya, Kya told Lin, Lin … actually I don’t think Lin told anyone,” Opal said, relishing every second of the look on Korra’s face. “Anyway, Kya told me.”

“Wow,” Korra said under her breath. “ _Big Shot_ has nothing on prison!”

“Why was I the last to know?!” Opal asked, thumping Korra.

Korra’s heart sank.

The last thing she’d wanted was for the whole prison to find out about what had happened … or rather, what had _almost_ happened. Korra wasn’t even sure exactly what was going on between them. Was it just a one-time thing? The look in Asami’s eye at breakfast suggested that it probably wasn’t. So was this just their craving for human contact reaching breaking point? Did Korra actually mean something to Asami?

What did Asami actually mean to her?

These were the questions that plagued Korra as she helped Asami take the dryers to pieces. They worked in silence, overly conscious of every move the other made.

Korra watched Asami brushing the hair out of her eyes, wishing it was her stroking those locks aside. She noticed the way Asami chewed her lip while her worked, wishing it could be her lip that Asami bit. As their fingers touched reaching for the same screwdriver, Korra wished she could kiss that blush away and feel those fluttering eyelashes on her cheek.

“Asami, I …” Korra mumbled after a while, swallowing nervously and summoning her courage.

Asami put her left hand to Korra’s chin and turned her face to hers. Their lips were a breath apart and Korra closed her eyes. She opened her lips slightly, waiting expectantly.

She opened her eyes in confusion, still waiting for the touch of Asami’s lips that she’d been eagerly hoping for.

Asami was looking over Korra’s shoulder, her eyes wide with dread.

“Asami? What … what is it?”

Korra turned around, scanning the laundry, searching for what could have made Asami turn so deathly pale.

“Oh,” Korra gulped, “her.”

Eska was hunched in the shadows, no more than a few feet from them. Her jaw was red and raw from Asami’s metal fist and her face was caked with dried blood. Streaks of ruined mascara were running down her cheeks like war paint and she was glaring at Korra and Asami with murder in her eyes.

Asami grabbed a screwdriver and was about to put herself between Korra and Eska when Korra tugged at her sleeve and shook her head. Asami crouched back down next to Korra and looked at her quizzically.

“Just … stay here,” Korra said, climbing to her feet.

“What are you going to do?!” Asami asked, still clutching at the screwdriver.

“I’m going to _talk_ to her,” Korra said, her voice calm and even despite her churning stomach.

Eska tensed as Korra walked over to her. Korra put her hands up to show she wasn’t going to try anything. Beneath the smudged makeup and the bruises, her eyes were enflamed from crying. Korra felt a pang of sympathy for her. Last night she’d held Asami while she cried, remembering the death of her father.

Korra remembered the way Asami’s body had shaken, her body racked by sobs.

She could only imagine what Eska had been through because of her.

“Eska,” Korra said quietly, almost inaudibly over the rumbling of the dryers, “I … I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what happened … I’m sorry you lost your father.”

Eska glowered at Korra and brushed off the hand she’d put on her shoulder.

“I don’t want your apology! I don’t want your _pity_!” she spat. “I want your still-beating heart in my hand!”

Eska lunged at Korra, her fingernails biting into the flesh of Korra’s throat. They toppled backwards and collapsed onto the floor, Korra pinned down by the weight of Eska’s body on top of hers.

Asami leapt to her feet but Korra gasped at her to wait, her voice barely above a whisper with Eska’s hands clenched around her neck.

“Asami, wait!” she said. “Eska, please …” This wasn’t what Korra had hoped for. But, she thought as her vision blurred, maybe this was what she needed and Korra couldn’t bring herself to hurt Eska. Not again.

“You killed him!” Eska growled, her grip tightening and tears welling up in her eyes.

“I know!” Korra yelled, ripping Eska’s hands away. “It was an accident! I’m sorry!”

“You opened that portal and watched as it tore my father to shreds!” Eska yelled, punching Korra in the face so hard that Korra was sure she’d break her hand. “And for what?! Money? What did you spend your bounty on? How much booze did my father’s death buy you?”

“I saved countless lives!”

“I don’t care!” Korra tasted blood as Eska hit her again.

“Eska, he was mad! There was nothing …” A fist slammed into Korra’s mouth and she felt a tooth break.

“I don’t care!” Eska shrieked again, her fists slick with blood. Korra wasn’t sure whose blood it was. “It should have been you!”

Somewhere an alarm sounded.

“This isn’t going to …” Korra’s words died in her throat as Eska punched her over and over and her mouth began to fill with blood.

“Bring him back!” Eska yelled, tears streaming down her cheeks and Korra’s blood spattering her face. “Bring. Him. Back!”

“He’s gone!” Korra spluttered through her bloody lips.

“BRING. HIM. BACK!” she yelled over and over as she pounded Korra’s face with her fists.

Her shouts eventually turned into incoherent sobs and her punches grew weaker. She gave Korra’s jaw a final blow and rolled off her, collapsing on the floor with her back against a dryer. Korra sat up groggily, spitting the blood out of her mouth and coughing.

Asami had run over and was cradling Korra in her arms. Korra’s first thought was that her blood would ruin Asami’s new set of clothes. Asami stroked Korra’s face tenderly and her eyes were brimming with concern.

“Eska,” Korra said, wincing, “your father’s dead. I’m sorry! But no matter how much you punch me … or stab … that’s not going to bring him back. He’s gone.”

Eska looked up at Korra, her tears mixing with the blood that had spattered over her face.

“You’re hurting. I know. That hurt doesn’t go away.” Korra glanced up at Asami. “You just learn to deal with it. So deal with it!”

Asami helped Korra to her feet.

Everyone in the laundry was staring at them.

Korra’s head was throbbing. She couldn’t tell if it was from the dryers or not.

“Korra, your face,” Asami whispered, her voice breaking.

Korra snorted, blood spraying out of her mouth. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she spluttered.

“It _looks_ pretty fucking terrible,” Asami said, laughing to stop her tears.

“It’s only slightly terrible,” Korra chuckled.

A sudden burst of shouting drowned out the thundering of the laundry room. An army of heavily armed guards stormed in, pointing guns at everyone and barking unintelligible orders. They dragged Eska to her feet. She struggled to free herself and she was thrown to the floor. One of the guards pinned her down with a knee in the base of her spine.

Korra shouted over the din as another guard kicked Eska in the face. He kept kicking even after she lost consciousness.

“Stop it!” Korra yelled. “You’re killing her!”

She broke away from Asami’s grasp and threw herself at the guard. His jawbone buckled under her fist. Korra staggered forwards as the guard dropped to the floor, dribbling blood on a pile of dirty underwear.

Korra smiled as the guard pinning Eska down got a mouthful of Asami’s boot and slumped forwards, unconscious.

‘When this is all over, I’m going to marry her!’ Korra thought to herself, only half jokingly.

They stood back-to-back over Eska as the flood of guards overwhelmed them.

Korra woke up, her head pounding and the taste of blood and bile in the back of her throat. She couldn’t remember passing out but she could feel the familiar sting of tranquilizer darts peppering her body. She tried to get up but couldn’t move.

“’Sami,” she murmured, trying to focus her bleary eyes. “’Sami?”

A boot poked her in the ribs.

“What about this one, sir?”

Korra craned her neck around. A guard was standing over her, a riot helmet covering his face. He was talking to someone just out of her field of vision.

“Send her to the Box,” a familiar voice spat. As Korra was dragged up off the floor, she sent a glob of bloody saliva flying through the air to land on the warden’s brightly polished boots.

Grinning, she was pulled to her feet. She blinked through the fog that clouded her eyes, looking desperately for Asami but couldn’t see her anywhere.

As she was dragged out of the laundry, Korra heard Asami shouting her name.

“’Sami,” she mumbled. What had they done to her?!

She drifted in and out of consciousness as she was half dragged, half carried through the maze of corridors. The guards pushed Korra through an airlock into a narrow corridor so intensely lit she thought she could feel her retinas burning. She staggered down the bright corridor and was thrown through an open door into a small, even brighter room. The walls had once been white but were now a mottled grey. There was nothing in her new cell except for a toilet in the corner and deep claw marks scratched into the walls, sweet mementoes left behind by the isolation-cell’s previous occupants.

She picked herself up off the floor and ran to the door as it slammed shut in her face.

“No! Let me go!” she yelled, hammering on the metal door with her fists. “You can’t leave me here!”

She pounded on the door until her knuckles bled and kept on pummelling.

“Asami!” she screamed, panic coursing through her veins.

She collapsed onto her knees and clawed at the cold, unfeeling metal.

“ASAMI!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit, did I say nothing bad was going to happen? Whoops!


	5. Chapter 5

Korra was dead. She’d been beaten to death, her skull split open under a guard’s boot. They were still trying to get her brains out of the floor down in C Block.

Or at least that’s what some of the rumours were saying.

Another rumour was that Korra had been thrown out of an airlock. Yet another one circulating the prison was that Korra had killed fifteen guards with her bare hands and escaped.

Opal didn’t pay much attention to the prison gossip.

Normally she lived for it.

Normally she soaked up every scrap of gossip she could get her hands on. Countless packs of cigarettes had been won and countless packs of cigarettes had been lost to bets based on gossip.

But not today.

She’d been there in the laundry yesterday. She’d seen Korra beaten senseless. She’d heard the warden telling the guards to send her to solitary and she’d been holding Asami back as Korra was taken away.

Korra had looked like shit when they’d dragged her out, blood trickling down her face, her lips cut and swollen, and half delirious from the tranquilizer darts. Eska had looked even worse when she’d been scraped off the floor and taken to the infirmary. Opal shuddered at the memory. There was still a spatter of blood on the laundry room floor, dried and dark. She’d probably have to mop that up later. She felt sick at the thought of it and kept her eyes fixed on the blankets she was folding, ignoring the blood-stained floor.

She hoped Korra was okay.

Opal had to admit that she was more worried about Asami though.

Asami wasn’t handling this very well.

She hadn’t been at breakfast and … actually, now that Opal thought about it, she hadn’t seen Asami since the fight in the laundry room. Asami had been screaming Korra’s name and struggling to break away from Opal’s grasp, tears running down her cheeks. She’d fought to get away and go after Korra but Opal had held her fast. She could still feel the deep-purple bruise between her ribs from Asami’s elbow.

Opal had only let go of her when Korra and the guards were long gone. Asami had collapsed onto her knees in the middle of the ruddy puddle that Korra had left behind, sobbing loudly. In all the time Opal had known her, all the shit they’d been through, she had never once seen Asami cry.

Opal had tried to comfort her but Asami had shrugged her hands off and climbed to her feet, her jumpsuit stained with blood. She’d set her jaw, wiped her eyes, and marched out of the laundry. Opal was a little afraid what she might do if given half the chance.

Those two had grown close over the past few days. ‘Very close!’ Opal thought, smiling to herself and remembering what Kya had told her. Opal would have given anything to have seen the look on their faces when Kai had caught them at it in the showers. She was a little surprised it had taken them so long to get it on.

Those dorks had been in love since they’d first laid eyes on each other. Everyone could see it. Everyone except Korra and Asami of course. They may be completely oblivious to it but Opal doubted that would stop either of them letting the other suffer.

And now …

Opal sighed and carried on folding the clean blankets, trying not to think about poor Korra. There was nothing she could do for her and worrying wasn’t going to help.

‘Think positive thoughts,’ Opal told herself.

She’d managed to get her hands on some new books the other day. She’d swiped them from the library when Wan Shi Tong hadn’t been looking. She’d only skimmed the blurbs but they’d looked pretty good and they were waiting for her under her bed when she got off laundry duty. The thought of new books always put a smile on Opal’s face even if they very rarely lived up to expectations. The prospect of starting a new book always filled her with a little thrill though, a little bit of childish excitement.

Kai would probably sneak off with Jinora later like he usually did so she’d hopefully have the cell to herself for at least a few hours. Opal was planning on stealing some of her cellmate’s pillows and making a start on her new books.

She’d have a smoke too. Opal didn’t normally smoke much, she preferred to save them for bartering. Usually for candy. But last night Kai had (reluctantly) given her those ten packs he owed her so she could afford to indulge herself a little.

Opal loved watching the smoke spiralling in the air while she read. There was something so relaxing about that, the way it swirled and writhed as if the air had come to life. The cigarettes always tasted like shit and made her cough her lungs up in the mornings but there wasn’t much in prison to enjoy.

She knew it was silly, but there was something so innately … ‘classy’ she supposed was the best word for it … about lounging in her underwear with a good book and a cigarette between her fingers. She felt like she was in one of those moody black-and-white artsy films that Huan had loved so much.

That reminded her that Pema and Jinora still owed her from their bet about Kya and Lin.

Why was everyone except her hooking up? Even Korra and Asami had almost got it on and they’d only known each other a matter of days, the horny bastards. Opal had been here for … she’d lost track now but it felt like years, and she’d been disappointingly celibate that entire time.

And it wasn’t as though Opal didn’t like girls. She liked girls! Girls just didn’t seem to like her. Neither did boys for that matter.

Not that there were many boys here.

Of course it didn’t help her non-existent love life that she had a ridiculous crush on a prison guard.

Bolin wasn’t like the other guards here though. They were all either cruel or lazy. Bolin was neither. He was awkward and shy and his foot seemed have an unnatural affinity for his mouth, but he was kind, gentle, and sweet. He was funny and smelt nice.

They’d been flirting for a few weeks now. Well, that’s if your definition of flirting was smiling awkwardly, having five minute snatches of mumbled conversation, and lots of blushing.

Opal realised she was blushing just thinking about him. She’d made fun of Korra for doing the exact same thing!

“Damn it,” Opal hissed under her breath, fighting a smile.

Opal tried to concentrate on her work instead of thinking about Bolin. She thought about how scratchy the blankets were instead of his infectious smile. Rather than picturing his uniform tight around his biceps, she thought grumpily to herself that the blankets were still a little damp. The dryers were fucking up again.

She’d ask Asami to take a …

Opal sighed sadly. As soon as she could get out of this fucking laundry she’d try and find Asami. She probably needed a friend around now, if not to comfort her then at least to stop her from doing something she’d regret.

She got back to work and tried to ignore the splash of red on the floor. She felt nauseous looking at it.

Opal was so intent on not looking at the blood-smeared floor that it was a while before she realised that Asami was squatting by one of the dryers, fumbling with her tools.

Opal threw the blankets aside and rushed over to her. She waved awkwardly at Asami and brushed her fringe out of her eyes. Her hair was getting long, she thought bitterly. She was half tempted to just shave it all off.

“Hey, Asami.” She didn’t really know what she was supposed to say but she wanted to make sure that Asami was coping. She thought about hugging her but didn’t want Asami to feel like she was getting in her space. “You okay?” she asked.

“Hey,” she said tiredly. Asami ran her hand through her hair and smiled half-heartedly at Opal. “Don’t worry about me. I’m … I’m good.”

Opal didn’t believe her for one minute.

Asami’s hair was a tangled mess and, beneath the mascara, her eyes were red and raw. She didn’t look like she’d gotten much (if any) sleep last night, but Opal guessed the redness was mostly from crying. Her orange jumpsuit was still spotted with Korra’s blood and Opal noticed the normally perfect nails of her left hand had been bitten down to almost nothing.

“You weren’t at breakfast,” Opal said as Asami turned back to the dryer. “Have you eaten?”

Asami made a dismissive grunting noise.

Opal squatted down next to Asami and leant closer. “You haven’t slept have you? Have you even showered?”

Asami shrugged.

“Asami!” Opal waited until Asami looked at her. “You need to take care of yourself. Korra’s gonna be fine. She’ll be back before you know it and you two’ll be getting your freak on in the showers!” Opal hoped her laugh didn’t sound as forced and hollow as she thought it did.

Asami managed a smile.

She brushed her messy hair out of her face and Opal saw that her lip was split and she was sporting a swollen, painful-looking black eye.

Opal didn’t remember Asami getting hit in the fight yesterday.

“What happened to your eye?” Opal asked, shocked. She put her hand to Asami’s cheek to stop her from turning her face away.

Asami mumbled something under her breath and looked away.

“Asami,” Opal said, sternly.

“Lin … hit me in the face,” Asami mumbled eventually.

“What? Why?” Asami pursed her lips sulkily. “Asami, what did you do?”

Asami brushed Opal’s hand away from her cheek and got back to work on the dryer.

“Built a flamethrower,” Asami said quietly.

“You did _what_?” Opal hissed, looking around anxiously to see if anyone had overheard.

“I was gonna get Korra. Lin saw me. Guessed what I was up to.” Asami ground her teeth as she struggled to pry the side of the dryer open. “She has quite a way with words,” she smiled sardonically.

“You … how did you …” Opal was at a loss for words.

“Can of hairspray, cigarette lighter, a wall bracket to … Owww, stop … what the fuck … Opal … knock it off!”

Opal had started slapping Asami’s head and face with both her hands. She didn’t do it hard enough to hurt her, just hard enough to knock some sense into her. “Why. Are. You. So. Fucking. Stupid?!” she growled between each slap.

She gave Asami a final whack and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“You are a fucking idiot, Asami. What good are you gonna be to Korra if you’re in the Box too? Or worse!”

Asami was still shielding her face with her arms. She looked up at Opal sheepishly.

“Are you done hitting me?”

“No!” Opal slapped her again. “You stupid lesbian.”

“I’m bi.”

“You’re an idiot!”

Asami laughed through her nose and slumped down onto the floor, her back to the dryer. She hung her head and chewed her lip. Opal realised she was holding back tears.

Opal sat down next to her and slipped an arm around Asami’s shoulders.

“I made her a promise,” Asami said quietly. “Tell me she’s going to be okay, Opal.”

“She’s gonna be fine,” Opal lied.

Asami smiled and rested her head on Opal’s shoulder.

Opal stroked Asami’s matted hair and they listened to the noisy laundry room together in silence for a few minutes.

Asami wiped her eyes and got to her feet. She tore the maintenance hatch on the side of the dryer open with a grunt and a whirring of mechanical fingers.

“Promise you won’t try to break Korra out again?” Opal said getting to her feet.

“Promise. I’m going to tear this place apart piece by piece until they _let_ Korra out,” she said, smiling sweetly.

Opal yelped in surprise as Asami thrust her mechanical fist into the dryer’s insides and tore out a crackling and sparking tangle of wires. Smoke was belching out of the dryer as Asami picked up her tools. She smiled at Opal, took a moment to admire her handiwork, and left the laundry.

“Shit,” Opal said under her breath. She wondered what else Asami had torn apart this morning. She hoped the administration let Korra go before Asami got to the life-support systems.

She was still looking at the trashed dryer and chewing her thumbnail worriedly when there was a nervous cough behind her that made her jump.

“Hey …” Bolin smiled shyly.

“Hey.” Opal fiddled with her hair and told her herself not to blush.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Opal plucked up the courage to say something.

“You’ve changed your hair,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, umm, trying something new. Do you like it?”

“Yeah,” Opal lied.

She liked his hair the way it had been. It had been messy and cute and, no matter how many times he ran his hand through his hair, there had always been a stray curl defiantly hanging over his brow. It was stupid and she’d never admit it to anyone, least of all to herself, but she liked his hair messy so she could pretend that she’d just been running her fingers through it.

Bolin smiled shyly, breathed a sigh of relief, and ran a hand over his slicked-back hair. He’d clearly been worried what she’d think. “How’s … umm … you having a good day?”

“I am actually, thanks for asking,” Opal said with a sardonic smile. “I went shopping this morning and met up with the girls. We had lunch together and we’re going out dancing later.”

“Huh?”

“Pretending to be normal. Sorry, crappy joke.”

Bolin rubbed the back of his neck and tried not to let his eyes linger on her for too long. His gaze eventually landed on the dryer. Torn wires were spilling out like guts and it was making a strained rattling noise as if it was struggling to draw its final dying breath. He frowned at it and was about to say something.

“Oh, uh, those things are always doing that!” Opal said. “I’ll, uh, I’ll get Asami to fix it.”

‘Though I doubt she’ll be fixing anything for a while now,’ she thought.

Opal had never been a very good liar but luckily Bolin had something else on his mind.

“I, uh, I got you something.” Bolin shuffled his feet nervously. “I found it in an air vent …”

“Hmm.” Opal raised an eyebrow at him. “I wouldn’t normally lead with that, but okay.”

Bolin laughed awkwardly and pulled a bundled up shirt out from behind his back.

“Oh,” Opal said, looking at the grubby shirt apprehensively. “You shouldn’t have. Really.”

“It’s inside,” Bolin said, smiling shyly. He put the bundle down on one of the smaller dryers next to Opal and motioned to her to open it.

Opal tentatively began to unwrap the shirt, looking up at Bolin suspiciously. The folds of cloth were strangely warm and Opal was sure it just a trick of the light, maybe it was just the juddering of the dryer, but it looked like it was … moving?

Opal stifled a squeal of delight when she saw what was curled up inside the shirt.

“It’s a fire ferret!” Bolin said, smiling broadly. He was clearly thrilled that Opal had liked his gift so much.

“He’s adorable!” Opal whispered excitedly, gently picking the stripy orange animal out of his makeshift nest and clutching him to her chest. The ferret blinked at her sleepily and yawned, his whiskers twitching. “He is a he right?”

“I didn’t want to invade his privacy too much, but yeah, I think so.”

“He’s so cute! Thank you!”

Bolin stroked the ferret and smiled shyly. He was standing so close! Opal started blushing and was glad that Bolin was too busy rubbing the ferret’s plump belly to notice.

“Wait!” Opal said suddenly. “ _Fire_ ferret? He’s not going to spontaneously combust or anything is he?” She held him out at arm’s length and looked desperately at Bolin. “Please tell me they’re called that because they’re orange!”

“Actually,” Bolin said thoughtfully, “I think it’s because they’re notorious for chewing through power cables and causing electrical fires.”

“Oh!”

“Yeah.”

The familiar awkward silence fell over them again.

“What does he eat?” Opal asked at last.

“Umm, pretty much anything he can get his grubby little paws on, I think,” Bolin said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Fruit, bugs, noodles, bread, wires. Fingers!” He held his hand up to show the tooth marks covering his fingers.

Opal laughed.

“I’m gonna call him ….” Opal chewed her lip thoughtfully, tickling the now snoring ferret behind the ears. “Rocket!”

“Oh, I, uh … he kinda already has a name,” Bolin said, pointing to the rolled up scrap of paper tied to a string around the ferret’s neck.

Opal unrolled the piece of paper and read it aloud. “’My name’s Pabu. I wuv hugs!’ Awww, and you drew a little paw print as his signature!”

“What? Oh, no, he wrote that. He’s very intelligent,” Bolin said, smiling proudly. “He can do tricks too! I was up all night teaching him!”

Opal snorted back her laughter and fought the urge to kiss his stupid, pretty face.

“He can live in my jumpsuit,” she said, smiling up at Bolin. “Spirits know there’s enough space.” She tugged at the baggy uniform to show him what she meant.

He smiled broadly and sat down on a trolley piled high with laundry. It moved suddenly as he sat down and he yelped, flailing his arms and almost falling over.

Opal nearly died laughing as he righted himself and brushed his uniform down, turning red from embarrassment.

Shit, he was an idiot! But that was kind of why she liked him so much.

“Do you know if Korra’s alright?” Opal asked when Bolin’s cheeks had turned back to their normal colour.

“I dunno. Sorry. I can … I can probably try to find out for you, if you want.”

“That would be amazing! Asami’s really worried about her. I think she’s gonna be sabotaging stuff all around the prison until they …. Oh no.”

“What?”

“You … you won’t tell anyone I told you that, will you? I don’t want to get Asami in trouble!”

“Don’t worry! I won’t say anything. I’d … I’d better get back on my rounds now. I’ll see if I can do something for Korra though.”

“Thank you!”

Opal swallowed her fear and nerves. She ignored her heart thumping in her ears and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He turned bright red and smiled like an idiot which just made her want to kiss him again.

Bolin waved to her shyly as he slipped out of the laundry. How someone as sweet and gentle as Bolin had ended up as a prison guard in this shithole, Opal would never understand.

She whiled away the hours before dinner playing with Pabu and trying not to worry about Korra or Asami and trying not to think about Bolin’s sweat-soaked back rippling with muscles. She didn’t succeed but at least she tried.

When the dinner klaxon finally rang, she stuffed Pabu and Bolin’s shirt into her jumpsuit, hissing at the ferret to stop wriggling. She hurriedly filled her pockets full of fruit and bread and slipped out of the canteen before anyone saw her. It wasn’t hard to slip out without being noticed. Most of the guards weren’t particularly interested in anything that the inmates did unless it meant they got to hit someone.

Mind you, Opal thought, it wasn’t as though the prisoners could just jump the fence and make a run for it. Not unless they had a spacesuit.

Alone in her cell, Opal pulled Pabu out of her jumpsuit and stripped down to her underwear. She stretched out on her bed, lit a cigarette and opened the first of the novels on her stack of books. She watched the smoke coiling in the air and listened to the silence for a few minutes. Pabu had curled himself up on her stomach and was nibbling on one of the pieces of fruit she’d grabbed from the canteen.

Opal hummed while she read – a few verses of a Ginger song that she couldn’t remember the words to – and Pabu flicked his tail, listening happily.

Bolin’s shirt was crumpled up next to her. She wondered if it smelt like him. Opal gritted her teeth and reread the paragraph that she’d skimmed, too busy thinking about Bolin.

“I’m not going to think about him,” she told Pabu.

He looked up at her with big, dark, watery eyes.

“I’m not.”

She couldn’t remember what the last two pages she’d read had been about. Opal sighed and snuffed her cigarette out on the floor. She lay back and ran her fingers through her hair, groaning in exasperation.

Pabu kneaded the soft flesh of her stomach under his paws and looked at her in confusion.

“Fuck it,” she said at last.

She grabbed Bolin’s shirt and buried her face in the fabric. She sighed happily, breathing in his smell.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she groaned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist making you all wait a while longer to find out what happens to Korra. Next chapter, I promise!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for making you wait so long for this chapter. I hope it's worth it.

Korra pulled herself up onto the flight deck and stretched. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa again and her shoulder was killing her. She hated that fucking sofa but she hated her bed even more. She would never have admitted it, but her bed seemed kind of empty now without Mako.

The whole ship seemed empty now.

Raava’s small flight deck was cast in a dim, blue glow and Korra could feel the engines purring quietly. The cramped flight deck smelt like stale cigarette smoke, rust, ozone, and countless years’ worth of dirt and oil. It smelt like home to Korra.

So why could she only smell disinfectant and the coppery tang of blood?

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Korra ducked under a low-hanging bundle of cables and glided through the air. She twisted in mid-air and sunk down into her seat at the main controls. She groaned happily as she eased herself into the deep-blue leather. It sighed and moulded to her body like a tender lover.

So why did it feel like she was leaning on concrete?

She put her bare feet up on the control panel, wiggled her toes, and squeezed the bag of Scotch. Glasses were pretty useless in zero gravity so Korra had to put up with these stupid plastic pouches with straws. Everything ended up tasting of plastic and you couldn’t put ice in these horrible little bags.

And if you couldn’t have a Scotch on the rocks or a Margarita with salt round the rim of the glass and a wedge of lime then what was the point in even getting out of bed?

Korra fiddled with the drawstring of her baggy blue sweatpants and watched as the few dewdrops of amber whiskey that had spurted out of the bag hung in the air, spinning and sparkling like liquid jewels. Korra flicked one of the swirling droplets and smiled as it bust into a hundred tiny points of light that shot through the air like space dust. The other blobs of whiskey were still pirouetting in front of her face, changing shape every second like amoebae.

She caught them on her tongue like snowflakes and smiled as the familiar burning coursed down her throat.

So why could she taste blood in her mouth?

Korra groaned and flicked one of the bobbleheads that were arranged on the control panel. Aang had superglued them on there so there they’d stayed. Even if they hadn’t been superglued in place, Korra wouldn’t have been able to bring herself to get rid of them.

She squirted another dribble of the Scotch into her mouth. The shutters had been rolled back and Korra watched the stars turning as the ship spun through space. She tried counting the tiny points of light that were painted across the empty, black canvas of space but she couldn’t make her eyes focus. She told herself she was just sleepy. Sleepy and hung-over.

So why did it feel like she had a concussion?

Korra threw her head back, closed her eyes, and sighed.

“Talk dirty to me, Raava,” she said with a cheeky smile.

There was a slight pause before Raava answered.

“ _Please state speed and course_.”

Korra liked to think that there was just a hint of weary amusement to Raava’s request or at the very least that the computer was blushing slightly.

“Let’s just drift for a bit,” Korra said wearily without opening her eyes.

“ _Confirmed._ ”

Raava’s even, detached voice always filled Korra with a sense of calm.

Raava was pretty much all she had these days to help keep the loneliness away.

“ _Would you like to watch Big Shot, Korra?_ ” Raava asked.

Korra sucked her teeth and slurped up more of her drink. She hated that stupid bounty hunter show. That blonde girl never seemed to be able to do her jacket up and the actors’ accents were horrible.

“Where’re we up to on Aang’s logs?” she asked.

Korra had never met Aang. He’d died before she was born but Aang had recorded countless hours of ship’s logs. Korra thought it was as if Aang – or at least his life, his voice, his memories – had, in a way, lived on through Raava.

Korra watched Aang’s logs quite a lot. It was something to cut through the constant, atrophying silence and ennui. Korra never felt quite so alone when she was watching Aang’s logs.

Plus Korra never got tired of hearing Aang talking about all the wild adventures he and his crew had gotten themselves into.

Aang and his crew had been in the resistance against Ozai’s galaxy-wide dictatorship about seventy years ago. They’d been heroes, Aang especially, but after the war had ended, Aang seemed to have lost his way. With no cause to fight for, no purpose in his life, he and his friends had ended up wandering the galaxy looking for adventure and an easy pay check. They’d dabbled in everything: scavenging, theft, smuggling, sabotage, kidnapping. You name it, they’d done it. Sometimes they’d even done things that weren’t illegal.

They’d gotten themselves into all sorts of trouble over the years but always seemed to get through it mostly unscathed.

The holo-display had flickered into life now and Aang was sitting at the controls, smiling his crooked smile and half-way through his story about the day’s adventure.

“… _and then Toph punched him again and it looked like he was going to cry!_ ” Aang was laughing so hard tears were running down his cheeks.

Korra liked Toph. The blind ship’s mechanic never appeared on the logs – she was always hidden away in the dark engine room where she could ‘see’ through the vibrations of the machinery – but from what Aang said about her, it sounded as though Toph was short, perpetually dirty, constantly taking the piss out of the rest of the crew, and liked hitting things.

Korra was just a little bit in love with her.

On the holo-display, Aang sighed and wiped his eyes.

“ _Sokka’s excited about being an uncle_ ,” Aang said after a bit, scratching his beard.

Aang’s facial hair was looking a lot less ridiculous now, Korra thought. She’d winced when she’d watched him starting to grow it in the early videos. The beard actually looked pretty good on him now but it would start to go grey as soon as Bumi was born.

Wait, how did she know that?

Korra shrugged it off and sucked the last droplets of whiskey out of her plastic bag. She chewed on the end of the straw and wished she hadn’t drunk her entire stash. She remembered that there was some rubbing alcohol in the first aid kit and wondered whether she could drink that.

There was a white flicker on the holo-display and a pair of huge ears appeared behind Aang’s head.

“ _Oh, hey, Momo. You wanna help me do the captain’s log?_ ” Aang asked, laughing and pulling Momo into a hug. The lemur chattered loudly and began chewing on the collar of Aang’s red-brown trench coat making him laugh even harder.

Korra tilted her head back, opened her mouth, and watched as the cigarette smoke climbed out of her mouth and drifted in swirling coils through the air.

She couldn’t remember lighting a cigarette.

“ _Momo, no!”_ Aang shouted as Momo jumped out of his arms and grabbed one of the cassette tapes that was lying on the control panel. _“That’s my Motown mix! Katara loves that one! Give it back, you piece of shit._ ”

Korra smiled to herself as Aang climbed over the back of his seat, chasing after the fleeing lemur. Korra’s smile faded slightly as a wash of déjà vu ran down her spine but it was drowned out by Aang’s desperate pleas and threats and Momo’s frightened chattering.

“ _I should have let Sokka barbeque you when we first found you!”_ Aang shouted from off-camera. _“I swear we’ll be having lemur-kebabs tonight if you break another one of my tapes! Oh, no, I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, just … Momo … MOMO! NO!_ ”

The lemur leapt at the camera and everything turned to static for a few minutes. When the video eventually returned to normal, Aang was sitting in his chair again. He was glaring at the off-camera Momo and methodically winding the tape back into the slightly gnawed cassette with a pencil.

He was mumbling sulkily to himself but started smiling again as the sound of Toph’s angry shouting drifted up from the engine room. Something smashed and Korra heard Sokka squeal.

Aang turned and smiled as a hand slipped across his shoulders.

 _“What did Sokka say this time?”_ he asked.

 _“I have no idea,”_ Katara laughed, coming into view of the camera as she bent down to kiss his cheek. _“Momo get another of your tapes?”_

Aang grunted and showed her the chewed cassette.

 _“Not the Motown one!”_ Katara said with genuine horror. _“Let him have the glam rock mix next time he steals one.”_

_“I like the glam rock one!”_

Aang had been in an accident when he was young and had ended up getting stuck in cryo-freeze for nearly a hundred years. When he’d woken up, he’d ‘liberated’ an antique cassette tape player from a private collector and had scoured the galaxy for tapes of old music to add to his collection.

The mix tapes had been a way for him to cope. They were a connection to his past, but Korra suspected that most of the music on his crappy tapes had been ancient before he’d even been born.

Katara was nibbling Aang’s ear now and he was blushing like an eleven year old with a crush. A wry smile spread across Aang’s face and he leapt to his feet, caught Katara in his arms, and pressed play on the tape player.

The opening chords of ‘Love Is Like Oxygen’ crackled over the ancient speakers.

 _“Oh, not the glam rock mix!”_ Katara groaned, hiding her smile behind her frown.

Aang just smiled at her and kissed her nose. _“May I have this dance?”_

Katara rolled her eyes but they were soon dancing together in dim glow of the cramped flight deck.

Korra smiled to herself and hummed along to the familiar tune. All of Aang’s crappy tapes and his crappy tape player and crappy speakers were still in the ship where he’d left them. Korra would listen to them sometimes when the silence got unbearable and she secretly liked playing the disco mix tapes while she was beating people up.

The music started to get louder and louder and Korra’s head started spinning.

The electric screech of the guitars cut through Korra until there were tears in her eyes and she couldn’t think. She couldn’t understand why Aang and Katara hadn’t noticed. They were still dancing and smiling at each other.

Everything felt like it was falling apart.

Korra tried to reach for the holo-display controls but her fingers were numb and she couldn’t remember how to turn it off.

Korra groaned, trying to shut out the noise and the pounding in her head. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, willing the noise to stop. When she took her hands away, Korra could have sworn her blue sweatpants had looked orange for a second.

The stars outside the flight deck vanished, engulfed in a cloud of sand.

“Korra …” a voice that Korra knew was Asami’s whispered in her ear.

Wait, but she’d met Asami … in prison …

If only she could think over this noise!

A wet slicing sound cut through the crackling of the video log and the humming of the flight deck and the deafening noise of Aang’s tape player. Everything turned deathly silent, only Korra’s hollow breathing echoed in her ears.

Korra could feel someone’s breath on the back of her neck and a tight numbness in her rib cage.

She looked down at the gleaming point of Zaheer’s blade that was sticking out of her chest.

“No! This … this hasn’t happened yet!” Korra screamed desperately. “It didn’t happen like this!”

Her screams eventually turned into incoherent spluttering as she started coughing up blood. It was streaming out of her nose and her mouth and her eyes. Her hands were covered in it.

She fell out of her seat and her head hit concrete.

Her blood shone in the dim light. It shone like liquid metal. It was as though the sword that had been thrust through her was seeping into her body, corrupting her blood, poisoning her, burning away her humanity.

Korra struggled to her feet, molten metal pouring out of her chest and turning the floor into a silvery pool beneath her. She felt like she was sinking. It was pulling her down. She was going to drown.

She was up to her waist in it now and sinking faster and faster with every passing second. She tried grasping for something to pull herself out but her fingers were slick with blood.

The holo-display was still on.

Aang and Katara were still dancing.

“Raava?” Korra asked, pleadingly. “Raava, what’s happening?”

Raava didn’t answer. Only Zaheer’s throaty laughter echoed through the flight deck.

“Help … me …” Korra gasped though she knew no one could hear her.

 _“Korra, you need to wake up!”_ Aang said sternly, looking directly at her. Katara’s head was still resting on his shoulder and she was smiling happily as they danced.

Korra gasped for air as her lungs filled with quicksilver, her vision blurring and her veins burning.

She wanted Asami.

 _“KORRA! WAKE UP!”_ Aang shouted.

Korra woke up suddenly, gasping for breath.

Her eyes flickered open but the cold, unrelenting light that she was met with was so bright that she closed them again. The searing pain in her chest was just a slowly fading memory now.

She sat up groggily and fumbled at her chest. She could feel the rough cloth of her vest under her fingers. There was no sword. There was no gaping wound. There was no blood.

Well, no _wet_ blood.

Korra tried to stand up but she was too weak. She leant back against the cold wall and tried to calm her racing heart and ragged breathing.

She hoped Asami was okay.

The light in the isolation cell was so bright it hurt her eyes. The light was always on so Korra couldn’t sleep. Every so often exhaustion would finally overwhelm her and she would slip into a fitful sleep but every time she would have nightmares like the one she’d just woken up from.

She had no idea how long she’d been here. A day? Maybe two? Time seemed to be one vague blur in the cell. One _painful_ vague blur. She could have been in here a year or an hour for all she knew.

Korra shielded her eyes with her hand and looked around the tiny cell.

There was a toilet in the far corner. It was barely a few feet away but Korra doubted she’d be able to reach it if she needed to throw up again. She hadn’t reached it last time.

The walls and floor of the cell were concrete which struck Korra as being odd. From what little she’d seen of it, the rest of the prison seemed to be almost entirely metal. She decided that the concrete gave the cell a distinct subterranean feel. That was probably why she was feeling so claustrophobic.

There were deep gouges in the concrete all around the cell as if someone had tried clawing their way out. Korra traced the length of one of the scratches with her fingertip. A trickle of fine, grey dust followed Korra’s finger.

Korra turned her head slowly and looked at the door. There was a painting on the heavy metal door. She squinted, trying to focus through her splitting headache and the glare of the light. It looked like a flower. A red flower. Maybe a rose. The petals were splashed across the metal and the stem trickled down in thin intertwining streams to pool on the floor.

Whoever had painted it had left a trail of red drips that led from the door and across the concrete floor to where Korra was sitting, slumped against the wall.

Korra looked at her hands. At first she thought that her hands were stained with paint but that didn’t explain the pain. Korra eventually realised that her knuckles were mangled and raw and caked in dried blood.

She could vaguely remember punching something. Had she been shouting as well? Her throat felt dry and sore though that could just be the thirst.

Korra glared at the muralled door, willing it to open.

The door stayed locked.

She couldn’t help thinking that any moment now the door would smash open and Asami would be standing there. Her raven hair would be billowing in the wind and her green eyes would be blazing and she’d smile as she reached out a hand for Korra.

But the door stayed locked.

Korra closed her eyes wearily. “Fuck,” she groaned. Everything hurt. If she hadn’t been so stiff and tired then she would have been pacing up and down her cell.

She wanted to go home. She longed to stretch out on that lumpy sofa and play some of Aang’s shit mix tapes. More than that, she longed to hear Raava’s voice again.

She clenched her eyes tightly shut and tried to focus past the pain.

 _Raava_ , Korra whispered into the void. _Raava, are you there? Please …_

There was no reply.

“Asami?” Korra whispered.

There was no reply.

Korra tried to choke back her tears but they were already streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes stung but when she tried to rub them she just hurt her already painful hands.

Time passed, silently.

Korra’s stomach growled.

She hadn’t eaten in … well, she wasn’t sure exactly. She knew that they hadn’t brought her anything to eat or drink the whole time she’d been in this cell.

Korra wondered whether they were going to let her starve.

She’d die of thirst before that though.

Korra tried to remember how long it took to die of dehydration. Three days? Four? Maybe five? She could always drink the toilet water, she thought. She wasn’t nearly thirsty enough for that though. Not yet anyway.

Time passed, slowly.

Korra opened her eyes again. She felt sick. She climbed slowly to her feet, her back against the wall for support. Her legs were cramped and her head was spinning. She took a step forwards and immediately regretted it. She heaved and almost threw up but her stomach was empty.

Her arms outstretched for balance, Korra carefully shuffled forwards.

Korra took another tentative step and everything turned black. For a moment Korra thought she’d passed out but she soon realised that she was still awake and more or less standing.

The lights had turned out.

Why had the lights turned out?

Was this a trick?

Korra wracked her brains, trying to work out what was happening. She couldn’t breathe. The life-support must have failed. She was going to die!

Korra fell to her knees and tried desperately to breathe. It was no use. She was dying!

Something at the back of her mind told her that it would take longer than this to suffocate if the life-support had failed. A satellite this size, it would take several hours to run out of oxygen, Korra realised.

She was just having a panic attack.

She had to calm down.

The lights had failed, that was all.

Korra clamped a hand over her mouth. She thought she could remember something about holding your breath when you had a panic attack. She tried to imagine the sound of the ocean. Was it the ocean she had to picture? She couldn’t remember. Maybe it was a waterfall? Or the rain? Snow? She knew it was something wet.

All she could hear was the throbbing of her pulse in her ears.

She held her breath for as long as possible.

When she finally let herself breathe again, Korra curled herself up in the corner of the cell and held her head in her hands waiting for the wave of panic to ebb.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled and Korra opened her eyes.

There was someone in her cell.

Incandescent eyes stared out of the shadows at Korra.

Korra’s eyes were gradually growing used to the darkness and she could see it … _her_ standing on the far side of the cell, cloaked in darkness and her gaze fixed on Korra, her eyes glowing like twin suns. She stepped forwards into a weak ray of light that was leaking through a vent in the ceiling. She had dark skin like Korra and a thick, muscular build like Korra.

She was Korra.

Her long, dark hair was tangled and her skin had been scoured by sand and desert winds. Her dragon-bird tattoo was coiled around her right arm like a chain and her baggy drawstring sweatpants and blue tank top were torn and covered in dust. A dark, wet stain was spreading across her chest and glistening rivulets were running down her legs and pooling around her bare feet.

Korra lunged at her. The silent apparition knocked Korra back against the wall, swatting her aside as if she were a bug. Korra sunk down onto the floor, her feet scrabbling uselessly as she tried to get further away from … _that_.

“Leave me alone!” Korra shouted as the figure took another step forwards.

Korra balled her fists in her hair and tried to ignore the constant dripping of blood on concrete.

The phantom cocked her head and looked down at Korra, her fists clenched and her face a cold mask of blank emotionless.

“You’re just in my head!” Korra yelled desperately, hot tears running down her cheeks. “You’re not real!”

She … _it_ glared at Korra, its eyes on fire.

When the lights flickered back on, she vanished.

Korra could breathe again now but she could still feel the panic surging through her veins and every breath hurt.

“What’s wrong with me?” Korra muttered quietly, on the edge of tears. Her hands were shaking and she was struggling to hold back breathless sobs.

She needed to get out of here.

She wanted to scream and tear her hair out. She wanted to hear Raava’s voice. She wanted Asami to hold her and kiss her and tell her everything would be okay.

If she spent even one more minute here she was sure she’d go crazy.

Korra was glad the light was back on but it was beginning to hurt again.

She’d suffered from panic attacks sometimes when she was young and Korra could remember her mother telling her to go to her ‘happy place’. Korra laughed half-heartedly to herself and shrugged.

She was willing to try anything at this point.

Korra closed her eyes and wished she was anywhere but here. She slowed her breathing and held her hands over her eyes to block out the glow of the lights that was seeping through her eyelids.

She filtered out everything except the sound of her own breathing.

Soon that sound became the humming of Raava’s engines, then the electric crackle of Aang’s tape player. Eventually, the sound of her slow, calm breathing became the sound of someone else’s soft, sleepy breath against her cheek.

She was in the command chair of Raava’s dark, starlit flight deck and sitting in Asami’s lap, her fingers entwined in her long, black hair. Asami had an arm around Korra’s waist and was tracing delicate circles across her bare leg with her fingertips.

This wasn’t like her nightmares.

It was just as vivid, probably because of the lack of food and the tranquilizers still coursing through her body. It was vivid but she knew she was dreaming this time. She knew she was still alone in her tiny cell and she could wake up at any point. She didn’t want to though. She wanted to stay here in Asami’s arms forever, even if she knew it wasn’t real.

Asami was wearing a red, silky dress and … no, dirty overalls, Korra decided. Or nothing. Korra smiled wryly to herself and sunk deeper into her daydream.

One of Aang’s crappy mix tapes should have been playing in the background but Korra couldn’t decide on a song. A happy one, she thought.

Alone in her cell, Korra ran her hand down her arm and in her dream Asami’s lips left a trail of kisses down her shoulder.

Korra finally decided on a song.

She leant back against the cell’s whitewashed concrete wall and hummed the opening chords to herself.

“Too many broken hearts have fallen in the river,” Korra sang quietly. “Too many lonely souls have drifted o-o-out to sea … something something something … the things we do for love … the things … we do for love …”

Korra’s voice had begun to catch in her throat and the sound of her voice just made the cell seem all the more empty. She couldn’t remember the next verse and skipped to the chorus.

“Like walkin’ in the rain and the snow, when there's … nowhere to go-oh-ooh.”

Her voice was breaking and she was struggling to keep the rhythm going. Her mouth was too dry for this, she thought bitterly.

“And you're feelin' like … a part of you is d- dying.” Korra’s lip trembled as she sang and a lump was rising in her throat. “And you're lookin’ fo-o-or the answer in her eyes … you think you're gonna make up … then she says she wants to break up.”

Korra took a deep breath and wiped her eyes.

She’d remembered this song being happier the last time she’d listened to it.

“Ooh, you made me love you …” Korra gasped breathlessly. “Ooh, you've got a wa-a-ay … Ooh, you had me crawlin’ … up the wa-a-all.”

Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she could taste the salt on her lips. Every word she sang was a spluttered gasp now and her voice broke on all the longer notes.

“A com-prom-ise would surely help the situatio-o-on … agree to disagree … but disagree to part … w-when after all it's just a compromise o-o-of …” The tears were streaming down her face uncontrollably now and she could barely speak, let alone sing.

“The things we do for lo-o-ove … the things … we do for love …”

Korra bit her lip and sniffed. She drew in a ragged, strained breath and hung her head. Her tears were leaving dark splotches on the floor between her legs and her nose was running.

“Like walkin’ in the rain … and the snow … when there's … nowhere to go-o-o,” Korra sang, barely coherent. “And you're feelin' like a part of you is dyin’ … and you're lookin’ for the answer in her eyes …

Korra’s voice was strained and barely above a whisper.

“Oooooh, you made me … love you … ooooh … got a way … oooh-oh … you … had me … crawlin’ … up …” Korra’s voice trailed off until she was just mouthing the words soundlessly.

Korra sobbed loudly and let the tears pour out.

“Have you quite finished?” a sharp voice snapped. Korra nearly jumped out of her skin. The mysterious voice chuckled while Korra scoured the cell, trying to find where the voice was coming from. “Don’t give up your day job!” the voice said, laughing.

“Are … are you real?” Korra asked, standing in the middle of the cell and searching desperately for the voice.

“What kind of idiot asks a stupid question like that?” the voice snapped. “How the fuck should I know?” It was a woman’s voice. She sounded old but age had done nothing to quench the sharp fire that edged her voice.

Korra laughed though it was more from relief at hearing someone else’s voice than anything else.

“How long have you been down here?” Korra asked, wiping her eyes and her nose on her vest.

“Fuck if I know. Long enough for them to forget about me.”

“What did you do?”

“He touched my Ty Lee, he hurt her, so I burnt his face off.” Korra raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips in surprise.

“What’s a ‘Tiley’?” Korra asked, confused and not really wanting to focus too much on the face-burning.

“My perfect little tiger lily, my little circus girl,” the voice whispered, as though Korra didn’t exist. “Bendy and curvy in all the right places and with the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen. It was disgusting how happy she always was. No one should be that happy.”

Korra stifled a shout of excitement when she realised where the voice was coming from. There was a small vent in the base of the wall. It had been plastered over and was nearly invisible except for a corner where the plaster had crumbled away.

While the voice kept on talking, Korra lay down next to the vent and began scraping the plaster away with her fingernails.

“When he touched her, when he hurt her …” The voice was silent for a while and Korra was beginning to think she’d imagined it. “I’d hurt her before but I’d never meant to … not really … I’d never forgiven myself for it either. She’d forgiven me though. But when _he_ hurt her!” The fire in her voice was an inferno now and Korra thought she could feel the anger radiating through the vent. “I think … I think I might have loved her,” the voice whispered.

“I know how that feels,” Korra said, surprising herself a little.

“I didn’t think someone … someone like me could love … I didn’t deserve … but …”

The voice went quiet again.

“Are you still there?” Korra asked after a few minutes. The lump rose back into her throat at the thought of being alone again.

“She was always good to me,” the voice whispered. There was an aloof, almost condescending sniff. “I don’t particularly care, but what about you?”

“What about me what?” Korra asked, suddenly off-guard. “Am I in love with anyone? No! What kind of … I mean … maybe, I dunno.” Korra laughed through her nose. “There’s this girl. My cellmate. I know it’s stupid, I only met her a few days ago, but I can’t stop thinking about her. I don’t love her, I just … her lips taste like bubble-gum and I can’t get her laugh out of my head and I … like … want to kiss her and feed her strawberries and listen to her breathing and … do other … sweatier, smooshier things.” Korra sighed as the aching in her gut got worse. An aching for Asami. “I think I kinda … need her. And … I dunno.”

There was a harsh, weary sigh. “Spirits, is everyone in this shithole a halfwit? What did you do? What feats of extraordinary stupidity got you put in the Box?” the voice asked, slow and clear as if she thought Korra was the most tiresome and ignorant person she’d ever had the displeasure of talking to. “Oh, and since you can’t see me, I should tell you that I’m rolling my eyes.”

“Oh!” Korra made herself more comfortable on the floor with her face next to the vent. “This other girl tried to kill me and then when the guards were beating her up I tried to save the girl who had just tried to kill me and it’s only now that I’m saying it that I realise how weird it sounds.”

“Well, weird is relative. I have voices in my head telling me to set fire to things.”

Korra wasn’t sure if she’d been joking or not but laughed anyway. ‘But are you haunted by half-dead phantoms of yourself?’ Korra thought with a bitter smile.

“The silence gets a bit much, doesn’t it?” Korra sighed.

“It doesn’t help,” the voice agreed. “But then neither did your abysmal and frankly painful attempt at singing!”

Korra laughed. Somehow this vicious old woman was strangely comforting.

“Thank you, I’m here all … well, who knows?”

The old woman’s bitter laughter rung through the vent. It sounded like snapping lightning and crackling embers. Korra shivered. She wondered what that laugh must have been like seventy or so years ago.

Korra closed her eyes to shut out the dazzling light and waited for the old woman to catch her breath. As the afterglow behind her eyelids faded, she saw Asami. Korra smiled to herself and let the daydream take over, eager to see where it would take her as she drifted off into a sort of half-sleep.

In her mind’s eye, Asami had a trail of bite marks down her neck and a sheen of sweat covering her freckled skin. She was breathing heavily, panting Korra’s name. Her bright, rose-red lipstick was smudged and Korra was telling her between kisses how much she loved her.

Korra opened her eyes suddenly as if waking up from a nightmare.

“Oh!” Korra sat up and ran a blood-caked hand through her messy hair. “Shit.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Korra mumbled.

She was still telling herself that she was stupid and that she was probably just horny or lonely and that she most certainly was _not_ in love with Asami, when the door to her cell swung open. The hinges shrieked and a shock of almost-but-not-quite fresh air washed over Korra. Every one of her cuts and grazes seemed to burn with cold fire in the sudden gust of air.

Someone was standing in the doorway. Korra crawled backwards away from the door as far as she could and curled herself up against the wall, whimpering.

“Korra!”

“Asami?” Korra whispered, shielding her eyes with her hand and squinting against the glare.

“Korra,” Bolin said softly. “Korra it’s okay. It’s me. They’re letting you out!”

Bolin crouched down in front of Korra and carefully put a tray down in front of her. There was a bottle of water and what Korra guessed was meant to be meatloaf. It was grey and smelt funny but Korra was salivating anyway.

Bolin looked around the cell at the clawed walls, the puddle of vomit near the toilet, the crumbled pieces of concrete and plaster scattered across the floor. He followed the drops of blood on the floor with his eyes to the dented, red-smeared door. His gaze eventually fell on Korra’s bloodied hands and she heard his sharp intake of breath.

Korra flinched away from him when he put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“You should drink something,” Bolin said, unscrewing the bottle and handing it to her. Korra took it gratefully, her injured fingers struggling to grip the bottle as she gulped the water down noisily.

When she’d drained the last dregs from the bottle and wolfed down the dry meatloaf, Bolin helped her to her feet.

Korra shot a wistful glance at the vent as she limped out, an arm draped over Bolin’s broad shoulders. She hoped the scary old woman would be okay. Korra decided that once things were back to normal – or as normal as things were these days – she would ask around about Tiley or Ty Lee or whatever her name was.

“Asami,” Korra said anxiously as they made their way out of the isolation block. “Is she alright? Is she hurt? What …”

“She’s fine!” Bolin interrupted, smiling warmly. “She missed you. Something happened to the lights and she refused to fix it until they let you go.” Korra laughed at that and felt a little bit of a blush creep across her cheeks.

“I wondered what that was about.”

“She managed to get them fixed pretty quickly once the warden finally agreed to let you go,” Bolin said as he helped Korra through an airlock. “Suspiciously quickly, actually. Almost as though she knew _exactly_ where to look.” Bolin winked at Korra.

Bolin let Korra have a shower and gave her a clean change of clothes before they went back to her cellblock.

As Korra walked back to her cell, the aches and pains in her body almost seemed to melt away. Almost. It felt like she was going home.

Korra guessed it was pretty late in the day but the energy barriers hadn’t been activated yet. When she passed Kai and Opal’s cell, they waved to her excitedly. Korra smiled and waved back. She caught Bolin waving too and had to stifle her laughter as he turned a shade of red she hadn’t thought was humanly possible.

“It’s good to have you back, Korra,” Bolin said at Korra’s cell. He gave her an encouraging pat on the back and smiled cheekily. “Go get her!”

“Shut up!” Korra gave him a thump in the arm, fighting her smile. She immediately regretted it as pain shot through her raw hands.

Korra stood in the doorway of the cell for a few moments after Bolin had gone. Asami hadn’t noticed her. She was sitting on her bed and frustratedly stabbing a piece of machinery with a screwdriver, swearing angrily under her breath.

She looked so beautiful.

Asami eventually gave up and dropped the gutted machinery unto the floor. She groaned and knotted her fingers in her hair.

Korra took a deep breath, ran her fingers through her hair nervously and stepped over the threshold.

“Hey,” she said quietly. Asami looked up at her and smiled, tears welling up in her raw, tired eyes. “Hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long,” Korra laughed.

Asami seemed to remember how to use her legs and jumped up. “Only three days!” she said, pulling Korra into a tight embrace. From the way her voice broke, it sounded as if Korra had been away for three years, not three days.

Korra smiled to herself and pulled Asami closer. A lump rose into her throat. She melted into Asami’s embrace, clung to the back of her jumpsuit and breathed in the smell of her hair.

Korra yelped in surprise as Asami lifted her up off her feet and squeezed so hard she could barely breathe. She was awkwardly aware of how close Asami’s face was to her chest and felt the blood rise into her cheeks.

“’Sami … can’t … can’t breathe …” Korra managed to gasp.

Asami put her back down but barely loosened her grip.

“Your face is a mess,” Asami laughed, stroking Korra’s cheek with her left hand and brushing her nose against Korra’s.

“Yours isn’t much better,” Korra said, gently feeling the yellowing edge of Asami’s black eye. “You’ve been crying.”

“I missed you,” Asami said quietly, her eyes darting over Korra’s bruised lips.

‘I missed you too’ didn’t seem to come even close to what Korra was feeling. She wrapped her arms around Asami’s shoulders, threaded her bruised and bloodied fingers through Asami’s hair, and kissed her.

Asami got over her shock quickly and kissed back, slipping her tongue into Korra’s mouth.

Korra fumbled at the zipper on Asami’s jumpsuit, desperate not to break the kiss and her other hand still buried in Asami’s hair. They staggered backwards and Asami slammed against the wall but hardly noticed. Korra managed to tug the zipper all the way down and began to pull Asami’s jumpsuit open. She slipped it off her right shoulder and kissed down Asami’s neck and across her scarred collarbone.

Korra moved her lips back to Asami’s and ran a hand up under Asami’s vest. “We don’t … have to … do this … if you … don’t … want to …” she managed to gasp, barely taking her mouth away from Asami’s with each word.

Korra tore her lips away reluctantly, waiting for Asami’s answer. She couldn’t keep her eyes away from Asami’s mouth, waiting desperately for the words she hoped to hear and the kisses she longed for.

“Yes we do!” Asami said breathlessly, grinning eagerly. She bit her lip and blushed. “I want to!”

Korra grinned and let the hand under Asami’s top glide higher as her teeth bit gently into the sensitive flesh under Asami’s jaw. Her hand reached Asami’s breast and her fingers brushed fleetingly over a nipple, already hard from the coldness of the cell.

Asami’s cold right hand cautiously, tentatively laced through Korra’s hair. Korra hummed into Asami’s neck and pressed her body closer against Asami’s, pinning her against the wall.

Asami let out a gasp as Korra bit a little too hard and accidentally clenched her metal fist in Korra’s hair. Korra pulled away. “Sorry! You want to stop?”

Asami shook her head emphatically.

Korra smiled and gently kissed the red bite-marks down Asami’s neck. She circled Asami’s nipple with her thumb. She felt Asami’s breath catch in her throat and smiled into her neck.

Whipping her hand away, Korra tore Asami’s jumpsuit off her shoulders. Asami leant forwards and caught Korra’s mouth in another kiss as they both struggled to free Asami’s arms from the jumpsuit. When Asami’s arms were finally out of the orange sleeves, Korra knelt down in front of her, pulling the jumpsuit down as she went.

The dirty, orange uniform was pooled around Asami’s ankles as Korra lifted Asami’s vest. She kissed up Asami’s stomach, nibbling playfully. She slid her hand up Asami’s thigh and hooked her fingers into her underwear.

Korra sat back on her heels and let Asami’s vest fall back into place. She rubbed her nose against the hem of Asami’s underwear, listening to the sound of Asami’s breathing and waiting for her racing heart to calm down a bit.

“We can stop if you want,” Asami murmured.

“Just savouring the moment,” Korra whispered.

“It’s … it all works down there,” Asami said quietly, avoiding Korra’s eyes when she looked up at her, confused. “If you’re worried … about me being trans … it all works, it’s all … normal.”

Korra felt her heart break.

“Asami …” Korra said sternly but warmly. She didn’t know what she could possibly say. She kissed Asami’s stomach and wiggled the fingers she’d slipped through Asami’s underwear. “I don’t care what you’ve got in your pants. You could have tentacles for all I care.”

“You’re not into that are you?” Asami asked raising an eyebrow.

Korra laughed as she pulled Asami’s underwear down to her knees with her teeth.

She kissed and nibbled the inside of Asami’s thighs, her hands gliding up Asami’s legs. Korra felt Asami’s entire body shiver as her lips brushed against the wetness between her legs. Asami stifled a gasp as Korra slowly, teasingly, tasted Asami with a gentle stroke of her tongue.

Asami glared at her as Korra sat back on her heels again, looking up at her cheekily. She lifted her hips up off the wall and whined. Korra’s lip curled in amusement and leant forwards again. She opened her mouth, the feel of her breath making Asami bite her lip in anticipation.

“Bed?” Korra whispered between Asami’s legs.

“Bed!” Asami agreed.

Korra jumped to her feet and picked Asami up, leaving her jumpsuit a tangled mess near the wall. Asami wrapped her legs around Korra’s waist as she staggered to the bed. Halfway there, Korra stopped, broke the kiss that she hadn’t even realised had started and grinned up at Asami. “Which one?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“Which bed?”

“Both!” Asami murmured hungrily into Korra’s mouth. Korra blushed a little and laughed, throwing Asami down onto the nearest bed.

Asami’s hair poured like black mercury over the pillows and Korra crawled across the bed towards her. She stole a kiss from those hypnotic, red lips and stroked a wisp of hair off her cheek. She took a moment to look into those amber-flecked green irises, inky pupils wide from the dark and desire, before spreading Asami’s legs as far as was possible with her underwear around her knees.

At some point the energy barrier had been activated and the lights had been turned off but neither of them had noticed.

Asami gasped into Korra’s mouth as Korra slid a finger inside her. Korra winced slightly. Her fingers were still sore and there was barely a shred of skin on her knuckles. Korra shut out the pain and placed another kiss on Asami’s lips as she worked a second finger inside her.

She curled her fingers and found Asami’s clitoris with her thumb. Asami sucked and nibbled on Korra’s bottom lip as she began to set a steady pace with her fingers.

Korra gritted her teeth as her wrist and fingers began to cramp.

“You okay?” Asami asked breathlessly. Korra nodded and gnawed her lip. She felt Asami writhe underneath her as she hit a particularly sensitive spot. Korra lasted a few more minutes before she had to stop. “What’s wrong?” Asami asked. “We can stop.”

Korra let out the breath she’d been holding and rolled over. “Hand’s cramped,” she muttered, flexing her fingers and rubbing her tired wrist.

Asami pulled her underwear back up and snuggled closer to her. She stroked the sweat-soaked hair from Korra’s forehead and nibbled her ear. “’S’okay,” she murmured. She sat up and took Korra’s wrist in her hand. “Shit, what happened?!” she asked, shocked when she saw the state of Korra’s hands.

“I think I might have kinda punched …” Korra said, avoiding Asami’s stern gaze, “… everything.”

Asami sighed exasperatedly and gently rubbed soothing circles into Korra’s wrist with her left hand. She planted tender kisses down each of Korra’s fingers, her lips barely brushing Korra’s skinned knuckles.

Asami sucked gently on Korra’s fingers, one after the other as she massaged her wrist. Korra blushed.

“I think I’m ready for another go,” Korra murmured after a while. “If you still …”

Asami gently shoved her down onto the mattress. “Sssh, relax,” she whispered.

Korra felt herself turning red from embarrassment as Asami hitched Korra’s vest up, exposing her breasts, muscular stomach, and the pale scar that tore its way down her chest. Korra’s skin prickled to the cold and to the touch of Asami’s lips as she kissed her way down Korra’s neck, across her collarbone, over her scar, before her lips finally closed around one of Korra’s nipples.

Korra hummed her approval and wound her fingers into Asami’s hair.

Kneading Korra’s breast with her warm left hand, Asami blazed a trail of kisses down Korra’s stomach. The heat from Asami’s mouth faded quickly after every kiss and it felt like there was a trail of cold fire down her body.

Asami’s warm fingers traced the length of a thin, twisting scar that wound its way from under Korra’s ribs down to her navel. Her lips ghosted over Korra’s hipbones and she tried to undo the sleeves that Korra had tied around her waist. Asami fumbled with the knot, her hands shaking with nervous excitement.

She eventually gave up and yanked the jumpsuit down Korra’s legs, underwear included. As Asami pulled Korra’s boots off, Korra watched Asami’s chest rising and falling, the loose, grey fabric of her vest clinging to her sweat-drenched skin and her metal arm shining in the dark. Asami threw the jumpsuit, undies, and boots across the cell and raked her fingernails through the knot of coarse hair between Korra’s legs.

After tying her hair back, Asami spread Korra’s legs. She shot Korra a wicked smile and began kissing up her thighs. Asami teased Korra with her tongue and her lips and her teeth until Korra was gasping and begging.

When Asami finally stopped teasing, Korra’s back arched and her hips leapt up off the mattress.

Korra hadn’t felt this good, this alive, in … well, in forever. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She wanted to feel Asami’s heart thumping through her chest and bask in the heat of her body and feel her sweat on her skin. She wanted to feel Asami’s breath on her cheek. She wanted … _needed_ to taste her, feel her, smell her.

Because what’s the point in feeling alive if you’re feeling it alone?

She tapped Asami’s shoulder and managed to gasp her name. Asami looked up at her and raised her eyebrows. Korra tugged on Asami’s hair gently and gnawed on her lip. She made a needy, whining noise in the back of her throat and unwrapped her legs from around Asami’s head.

“Fingers’ll do …” Korra murmured between breathless gasps.

Asami wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She smiled and crawled up next to Korra. Korra wrapped her arms around her, digging her nails into Asami’s back, and pulled her down so that their bodies were pressed together.

Korra gasped Asami’s name over and over as Asami’s fingers began to finish what her mouth had started.

Korra could feel Asami’s breath tickling her neck before she started kissing and nibbling and sucking. Breathing in the smell of Asami’s hair and sweat, Korra ran a sore, scabbed hand down Asami’s back. She stroked the inside of Asami’s thigh and tugged Asami’s underwear down. Korra felt her hum into her neck as she slid her fingers inside her.

It wasn’t the most comfortable of positions. They tried rolling over several times and nearly fell off the narrow bed.

After a few minutes and in a better position, they were both breathing heavily and Korra couldn’t tell which thudding heartbeat was hers and which was Asami’s. Korra was already on the verge of climaxing when she felt Asami clench around her fingers. She smiled and locked her lips over Asami’s, sharing her breath as they came.

Rolling over and blinking away the dopamine haze that clouded her brain, Korra smiled to herself as Asami pulled the blankets up over them. Asami slipped her strong left arm around Korra and kissed her neck. Even after all that had just happened, Asami’s kisses made Korra blush and her stomach flutter.

“Let me guess,” Asami whispered, “this was a mistake.”

Korra rolled over to face Asami who was smiling cheekily, her metallic right arm hidden away under the pillows.

“Oh, yeah,” Korra said sarcastically and matching Asami’s smile, “a terrible, terrible mistake.”

“Now you’ve had your way with me, you’ve probably lost interest,” Asami said, biting back her laughter.

Korra kissed her and tugged on her lip gently. “Mmm, I’ve got what I wanted,” she said when she let go of Asami’s lip. “I’ll just grab my clothes and leave now.”

Asami’s lips hovered over Korra’s. “We can never let it happen again,” she said, trying her best to look serious.

“Never again,” Korra whispered as her finger danced down Asami’s stomach.

“Just … our craving for human contact … reaching … breaking point.” Asami gasped as Korra’s finger slid inside her.

“That’s definitely it,” Korra said, her lips brushing Asami’s. “Just a one-time thing.”

“Of course!” Asami said into Korra’s mouth.

When they were done … again … Asami collapsed on top of Korra and tried to catch her breath.

Korra stroked a curl of hair out of Asami’s eyes and smiled up at her. Asami smiled back. She planted a light kiss on Korra’s nose and brushed her lips over Korra’s trembling eyelashes. Asami tilted her head to one side and looked intently down at Korra, knitting her eyebrows.

Her thumb glided over Korra’s cheek. “You have the most beautiful eyes,” Asami said as if she were in a dream. Korra felt herself blush. “The left one looks darker than the right one.”

“The right one’s a prosthetic. I was in an accident a few years back.” Korra stroked a strand of Asami’s hair behind her ear. “You don’t have anything to eat do you?”

Asami gazed into Korra’s eyes for a few seconds before blinking as if she’d woken from a trance. “Oh, uh, yeah. I’ve got a packet of cookies that I was saving for a special occasion.”

Korra’s stomach growled. “This is kind of a special occasion,” she said with her best puppy-dog eyes.

“You mean the sex or you getting out of the Box?” Asami laughed as she fished the cookies out from under the bed.

“Both?” Korra said, her mouth already full.

Asami chuckled to herself and nestled up against Korra. She closed her eyes and drew lazy spirals down Korra’s stomach.

Korra was just about to offer Asami the last cookie (well, half of the last cookie) but Asami was already fast asleep.

Korra threw the empty packet aside. She wiped the crumbs away from her mouth and kissed Asami’s forehead. She wrapped her arms around her and closed her eyes, listening to Asami’s quiet breathing.

For one fraction of a second between breaths Korra forgot about Zaheer. She forgot about Kuvira. She forgot Raava. She forgot Aang and Eska and the phantom in the Box. For an instant, the war stopped and the cold, dark walls of the cell vanished.

For one short, fleeting moment, the woman lying next to her with the maraschino-cherry lips was Korra’s entire universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, do NOT drink rubbing alcohol! Actually you shouldn’t smoke either. It’s not cool. The characters in this only smoke because of self-destructive tendencies or some crap like that.  
> I’m not sure many people will pick up on the inspiration for Raava (the computer, not the ship) in this so I thought I should probably mention that she’s based on Zen from Blake’s 7. I dunno, maybe you picked up on it, I just haven’t come across many people who’ve seen the show. Which you should totally do because it’s brilliant!  
> I’ve been working from a rough plan so far but my notes for the next few chapters just say “Smut! Smut! Smut!” so really anything could happen next. Your guess is as good as mine.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long since the last update - things were getting so smutty that the old narrator quit and we had to hire a new one.

“Korra! Korra, wake up. It’s just a nightmare.”

The dream shattered and Korra gasped. She opened her eyes, and bolted upright. She was breathing heavily and the tangled blankets clung to her sweat-soaked skin. She relaxed a little as a gentle hand pulled her back down onto the pillows and Korra felt soft and tender kisses on her skin.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Asami whispered to her, pulling her closer, her warm breath tickling Korra’s cheek. “It was just a bad dream. That’s all.”

Korra rolled over and smiled at Asami, her face illuminated by the electric-glow of the cell’s energy barrier. As she stroked her cheek and gazed into those blazing green eyes, all memory of the nightmare vanished.

Korra smiled at her embarrassedly and traced the trail of bite-marks down Asami’s neck with still shaking fingers. Korra had been half-afraid that last night had been a dream – a wonderful, wonderful dream – but the red, tender marks on Asami’s butterscotch skin and the similar ones Korra could feel on her own neck and thighs were proof it had all been real.

“Hey,” Korra whispered, smiling.

Asami smiled back at her, chewing her lip shyly. “Hey.”

Korra’s heart turned summersaults and she had to swallow the need to press her lips against Asami’s. What remained of yesterday’s lipstick was smudged and Korra could taste it on her own lips. It had an artificial, saccharine taste like bubble-gum. Korra wondered what Asami used as lipstick as she unconsciously licked her lips.

After a few moments of intense, awkward silence, they both broke into laughter. Asami ran a cold foot up Korra’s leg making her shiver.

“Asami …” Korra whispered after poking Asami in the ribs and moving her legs away from Asami’s feet.

“I wasn’t watching you sleep!” Asami said quickly. “You … you were talking in your sleep and woke me up. I wasn’t …” Asami’s protestations turned into nervous, guilty laughter.

“Okay,” Korra said, laughing, “I believe you. I … umm, I know we kinda joked about it last night but …” Korra took a deep breath and looked away from Asami shyly. “You … Last night kinda … I dunno, it’s silly but I guess … I’m not saying it meant anything to me but …”

She trailed off, her stomach twisting itself into nervous knots.

Asami looked at her questioningly, expectantly, stroking her fingers through Korra’s messy hair.

Korra took a deep breath, glanced at Asami, and finally let the words tumble out. “You … you don’t regret what happened last night, do you?”

Asami scowled at her.

“You’re an idiot, Korra,” Asami said, fighting a smile and her lips brushing Korra’s.

“I know,” Korra muttered before Asami’s lips locked over hers.

Korra threaded her fingers through Asami’s hair and deepened the kiss, her chest filling with a warmth she couldn’t explain. When Asami pulled away Korra rose up off the mattress a bit, desperate not to let the kiss end.

When Korra had caught her breath, she snuggled closer to Asami, basking in the heat of her embrace. She stroked the cold metal of Asami’s cybernetic wrist and drew spirals across her palm. Asami pulled her hand away as Korra threaded her fingers through hers.

Korra looked up at Asami questioningly, worried that she’d done something wrong. Asami smiled apologetically and kissed Korra’s cheek.

“I don’t wanna go back to sleep,” Korra whispered, closing her eyes.

“The nightmares?” Asami asked as she stroked delicate circles over Korra’s shoulder with her warm left hand.

“No,” Korra sighed. She just wanted to stay in Asami’s arms, safe and secure forever.

“Oh!” Asami said, raising an eyebrow. “Little early for me and I’m still pretty tired from last night, but … sure, okay.”

Korra pinched her and laughed. “Not that! I just … wanna snuggle.”

“You are such a dork!” Asami laughed, hugging Korra tighter. “Ruthless bounty hunter, my arse!”

Korra growled in pretend anger.

Korra could feel Asami’s chest rising and falling and the smell and the heat and the soft touch of her skin was intoxicating. She never wanted to get out of bed ever again. Ever.

“I missed you so much,” Korra whispered, her gut aching at the memory of her time in isolation. She wasn’t sure if Asami had heard but kind of hoped she had.

Asami laughed as the sound of Korra’s stomach rumbled through the cell like thunder. “You hungry?” she asked.

“Very! How long is it until breakfast?” Korra asked hopefully.

Asami shrugged. “Quite a while, I should think. It’s hard to know what time it is in here.”

“I’m sure we can find _something_ to pass the time,” Korra murmured, her lips retracing the path up Asami’s throat that they’d marked last night and her hand gliding up under Asami’s vest. Asami grinned and ran a hand down Korra’s waist under the blanket.

Korra hummed happily and straddled Asami, leaning down to kiss her. Biting her lip and blushing a little with nervous excitement, Asami ran a hand through Korra’s hair and pulled her down, closing the gap between their mouths. A sudden bolt of pain shot through Korra’s battered body and she grimaced as their lips met.

“You okay?” Asami asked, concern etching her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything hurts,” Korra groaned, rolling off Asami and burying her face in the pillows. The pain had been a constant dull throbbing in the back of her mind since she’d woken up, but now it was taking all her willpower to stop herself from crying out.

“From getting the shit kicked out of you or the sex?” Asami asked.

“Both?” Korra mumbled. “Is it alright if we … I dunno, maybe later.”

Asami slipped a warm arm over Korra and left a trail of kisses down her back.

“Sure,” she whispered between kisses. “Poor thing.”

Korra must have drifted off to sleep again because the next thing she knew, she was drooling into the pillow and Asami was clambering out of bed. Korra propped herself up on her elbows, ignoring the pain in her shoulders.

“Where’re you going?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes as Asami tiptoed across the cold floor. “Is it breakfast?!”

“Go back to sleep,” Asami said softly as she picked her crumpled jumpsuit up from the far side of the cell where Korra had torn it off her last night. “The guards just changed shift. There’s still about an hour or two before the barriers go down.”

Korra sat up, running her hands through her messy hair. She wiped her chin on her vest and stretched. “Nah, I’m up now,” she yawned. “Whatcha doin’?”

Asami sat down on the bed next to Korra. “Decided to shave my legs,” she said, ferreting through the pockets of her jumpsuit. She shrugged and ran her metal fingers through her hair, a little embarrassed. “I was bored.”

“Can I help?” Korra asked.

“Of course!” Asami’s smile faded and she looked angrily at her cybernetic hand. “I can never seem to do it properly with this thing. I always end up doing one leg really well and making a mess of the other one. Always end up cutting myself at least once.”

Korra was just about to jump out of bed when she looked down and pulled the blankets closer.

“Umm, Asami …” Korra said, blushing. “You … you don’t know where my underwear is, do you?”

Asami laughed and began scouring the cell for Korra’s misplaced underwear.

“I’m sure I threw them over here somewhere,” she said from the far side of the cell after a few minutes of searching, scratching her head in confusion.

Korra was turning a deeper shade of red with every minute that passed. Asami shot her a cheeky grin as she checked under the other bed again. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?!” Korra said, feigning outrage.

“Maybe just a little bit,” Asami admitted.

“My jumpsuit’s there,” Korra said, pointing to the uniform strewn over the floor, “so they can’t have gotten far.”

“Found them!” Asami said, grabbing the undies from under the bed and waving them in triumph. Korra breathed a sigh of relief. “Now come and get ‘em,” Asami said, grinning devilishly.

Korra scowled at her. She gathered the blanket up, wrapping it around her waist as she got out of bed. She snatched her underwear out of Asami’s hands and gave her the finger. Asami pouted to hide her laughter and turned her back as Korra hopped from one foot to the other, struggling to get them back on.

Asami fumbled through the pockets of her jumpsuit while Korra got dressed. Finally finding what she was after, Asami dropped her uniform onto the bed and threw a handful of small, plastic sachets to Korra who flinched and let them scatter all over the floor. Korra groaned and sat down on her jumpsuit. She began picking them up while Asami rummaged around under the bed.

A few minutes later, Korra had gathered the little packets up into a small pile and was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Asami was sitting on the floor opposite her with her back against the edge of Korra’s bed. Her bare legs were stretched out in front of her and she had her feet in Korra’s lap. She had found a razor, a chipped mug, and a bottle of water under the bed which she had arranged next to Korra.

Korra picked up the pink-handled razor and held it up to the light, fiddling absentmindedly with Asami’s toes with her other hand. The razor was one of those cheap, mass-produced disposable razors, the kind that became blunt after only a few uses. And this had seen more than its fair share of use.

“Where’s the shaving foamy stuff?” Korra asked.

“There,” Asami said, pointing to the pile of sachets and opening a battered, dog-eared paperback.

Korra picked up one of the little sachets. In the gloom of the cell it was nearly impossible to see what the packets were. Korra had no idea how Asami could read her book in this terrible light.

Korra tore the sachet open with her teeth and squeezed the contents out into her hand. She sniffed at it suspiciously.

“Peanut butter?!”

Asami peered over her book at Korra and grinned. “Yup!”

“You’re sure about this?” Korra asked, uncertainly.

“Yup,” Asami said again.

“You shave your legs … with peanut butter?” Korra asked in disbelief.

“When I have the time,” Asami said.

“Peanut butter?” Korra asked again, expecting at any moment that Asami was going to tell her it was a joke.

Asami laughed, put her book down, and wiggled her toes at Korra.

“The shaving foam that Kai gets gives me a rash,” Asami explained.

“But … _peanut butter_?”

“Shampoo works too but it’s too expensive to waste on leg shaving. That stuff’s like liquid gold! Peanut butter works just as well and Kai only charges one cigarette per handful of these sachets.” Asami opened her book again. “Plus doing it this way smells really good and makes my legs all soft.”

Korra looked up at Asami then back down at the globule of peanut butter in her palm. “But it’s all … thick … and … peanut buttery …”

“That’s what the mug of water’s for,” Asami said, pointing at the chipped mug next to Korra and smiling at the frankly adorable look of complete and utter disbelief on her face. “You water it down to make it less thick. Not too much water though. You’ve got to leave some for rinsing the razor.”

Korra looked back up at Asami and squinted at her dubiously. “This is just a weird sex thing, isn’t it?” she asked, doing her best not to smile.

Asami laughed and prodded Korra in the belly with her foot. “I promise you, it’s not a weird sex thing,” she said reassuringly.

“So … you want me to just … smear this all over you?” Korra asked, grinning at Asami teasingly. “Mmm-hmm, _definitely_ not a weird sex thing!

Asami rolled her eyes and poked Korra again. “Idiot.”

“Pervert,” Korra said under her breath.

“Asshole.”

“Sex-fiend.”

“Jerk.”

Korra twisted the lid off the bottle with her teeth and carefully trickled water into her cupped hand. She put the bottle down and rubbed her hands together, working the peanut butter into a thin, slippery paste. It seemed to get everywhere and she pulled a face as the peanut butter dribbled out between her fingers.

Asami saw the look on Korra’s face. “You’re the one who wanted to help,” she laughed.

“You’re just lucking you have such great legs,” Korra grumbled as she began to spread the makeshift shaving foam up Asami’s leg and trying not to think about how much she was enjoying touching Asami. The smell of peanuts began to fill the cell and Korra’s stomach growled.

Asami closed her eyes, smiling blissfully as Korra rubbed the paste with firm, sweeping motions up to her knee and back down to her ankle repeatedly. When she’d finished, Korra started on the other leg.

Asami opened her eyes, wondering why Korra had suddenly stopped halfway up her shin. “Korra!” she said sternly. “Stop eating the shaving foam!”

Korra took her fingers out of her mouth sulkily.

Ignoring the gnawing hunger in her gut, Korra finished lathering up Asami’s legs. Korra wiped her hands on a wad of toilet paper and picked up the razor. Korra chewed on her lip as the razor glided up Asami’s leg. She kept a gentle, inexorable grip on Asami’s ankle to keep her from moving and making sure she didn’t get cut. Her hands were beginning to heel but she was all too aware of her trembling fingers and the scabs on her knuckles cracking as she gripped the handle of the razor.

Korra looked up at Asami as she cleaned the razor in the mug. Asami was scribbling in the margins of her book, a distant dreamy look on her face.

Korra smiled to herself and pinched one of Asami’s toes.

Asami looked up from her book. “Yeah?” She saw the cheeky grin on Korra’s face and blushed, chewing the end of her pencil. “What?”

“You’re turned on by this, aren’t you?!” Korra laughed,

“What?! No!” Asami’s ears turned red and she hid her face behind her book. “Maybe, I dunno. Well, it’s kinda … intimate, I guess?”

Korra’s tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth as she carefully worked on the area around Asami’s ankle. “I suppose so,” she admitted.

“Well, I mean, there’s a lot of skin contact and it’s normally something you’d do in private and it’s just the two of us and it’s all quiet and …” Asami realised she was beginning to ramble and shrugged. “And I have to put a lot of trust in you not to cut me.”

“Wait … so … me not cutting you is turning you on?” Korra asked, teasingly.

“Well it’s kinda weird when you say it like that.” Asami looked daggers at her and sighed exasperatedly. “Way to kill the mood, Korra.” She’d started doodling in her book again and looked menacingly at Korra. “How could you tell?”

“How could I tell you were turned on? Opal said you draw when you’re horny,” Korra said in a matter-of-fact tone, turning her attention back to Asami’s leg. “She was right.”

“Opal talks too much,” Asami grumbled under her breath. “Keeps my hands busy.”

“So …” Korra asked, pretending to be focusing on the razor gliding up Asami’s shin, “you and Opal …? You ever …?”

Asami grinned at her enigmatically. “Jealous?”

“I dunno,” Korra countered, “you want me to be?”

“Maybe just a little bit,” Asami said quietly.

Korra laughed. “Yeah, okay. I’m maybe just a little bit jealous.”

Asami rolled her eyes and fought a smile. “We shared a cell a while ago but nothing happened.”

Korra hoped that she didn’t look quite as pleased as she felt.

“What are you drawing?” she asked.

Asami blushed a little as her eyes flickered over Korra. “Nothing,” she said quietly and biting her lip.

Korra raised her eyebrows in disbelief, cleaning the razor again.

“Honestly!” Asami protested. “Nothing!”

Korra gave her that look again.

Asami sighed and showed Korra the book, turning her face away to hide her embarrassed smile.

Korra leant forwards and squinted at the open book. In the dim light she could just about make out small but detailed patterns weaving in and out of the print. She leant closer and realised what they were.

“My dragon-bird tattoo,” she said. She could feel her cheeks beginning to burn a little bit.

Asami took the book back and carried on doodling. “Yeah, it’s … beautiful.”

“Thanks,” Korra mumbled, her cheeks burning furiously now.

When Korra had finished shaving Asami’s legs and had wiped away the last dregs of the peanut butter shaving foam, she pulled Asami’s feet into her lap. She began kneading little circles into the arches of Asami’s feet with her thumbs.

Asami groaned happily and let her head fall back against the bed, her book and pencil falling to the floor.

“Spirits! I want to marry your fingers!”

Korra laughed, moving her fingers to Asami’s heels and ankles. “What about the rest of me?”

“Ha! You’d be lucky!” Asami curled her toes and hummed. “Shit, yes, there! That’s perfect!”

“So we can add ‘foot-fetish’ to your list of kinks,” Korra laughed.

“Isn’t a foot-fetish usually for other people’s feet?” Asami mumbled, struggling to keep her eyes open.

Korra shrugged. “Same difference.”

“And what do you mean _list_ of kinks?!” Asami said, opening an eye and giving Korra a sour look.

Korra batted her eyelashes at Asami innocently. Asami pouted at her and Korra tickled her feet, laughing as Asami’s frown broke. Asami whipped her feet away and threw a pillow at Korra. Ducking the pillow, Korra felt something in her shoulder tear and a shudder of pain shot through her aching muscles.

She winced and rubbed her neck.

“Come here,” Asami said kindly, a hand held out to Korra.

Korra grabbed a handful of the peanut butter sachets and crawled across the floor towards Asami. Guiding Korra with a gentle hand on her waist, Asami made Korra sit down between her legs with her back to her.

Squeezing a dribble of peanut butter into her mouth, Korra smiled to herself as Asami’s warm left hand carefully traced the curve of Korra’s neck. She massaged Korra’s neck and shoulder, pinching the tired muscles gently between her thumb and forefinger. Her hand slipped across Korra’s shoulder and down her left arm.

“Korra …” Asami whispered, her lips brushing Korra’s ear.

“Mmm?” Korra murmured, her mouth full and her skin prickling to Asami’s touch.

“Can I …?” she asked, pulling Korra’s vest up.

Korra swallowed the mouthful of peanut butter. “Oh, yeah, sure,” Korra said quietly, lifting her arms and letting Asami peel her vest off.

Korra’s scalp tingled as soft lips trailed down her neck and across her shoulders. Korra could feel Asami’s breath on the nape of her neck as a warm hand glided down her back, tracing the latticework of scars. Like a sculptor admiring her masterpiece, Asami’s fingertips explored the contours and fissures of Korra’s body. Her fingers followed the scars Kuvira had gouged into her back, the knot of scar tissue between her shoulder blades that Zaheer’s sword had left, and the older, fainter spider-webbing of innumerable scars from years ago.

Korra didn’t want Asami to ever stop touching her.

When she’d finished her near-worshipful survey of Korra’s scars, Asami’s fingers returned to the knot of tension in Korra’s shoulder, near the base of her neck, and began to gently rub soothing circles into her aching body. Korra tried to let herself relax and closed her eyes.

“You’re so tense,” Asami murmured. Cautiously, tentatively, Asami’s cybernetic hand grazed Korra’s other shoulder. A not-unpleasant shiver ran through Korra’s body, the same kind of beautiful shiver she used to get when she watched the sleet falling outside her bedroom window as a child.

Asami must have noticed Korra’s shudder because she instantly let her hand fall away.

“Sorry, did … did I hurt you?” she asked.

Korra turned her head to look over her shoulder so she could see Asami’s face. “No. No, it was just cold.”

“Sorry,” Asami mumbled.

Korra reached out for Asami’s hand, caressing her metal fingers reassuringly. “No, it was nice.”

Almost as cautiously as before, Asami’s cybernetic hand found its way back to Korra’s shoulder. Korra smiled and the tension in her muscles ebbed under Asami’s hands. The pressure of her right hand was significantly lighter and more hesitant than the other.

Korra let her head fall forwards, her chin resting on her chest. Everything was silent apart from the sound of her breathing.

“You feeling better?” Asami asked, as her hands glided further, her thumbs tracing the sharp curves of her shoulder blades, down her back, following the muscles either side of her spine and pulling the tightness out of her muscles with the sweeping motions of her palms.

Korra hummed contentedly in answer.

Asami’s touch became feather-light when she reached Korra’s lower back. Asami kissed her neck and jaw and slipped her hands down to Korra’s hips, her thumbs still working circles into her flesh, soothingly. Korra turned her head, trying to meet Asami’s lips with hers as Asami’s warm hand danced up her waist, her ribs, and cupped her breast, her cold right hand still firmly placed on her hip.

Korra leant back and gasped as Asami teased her nipple. Asami’s breath tickled her ear and Korra reached a hand back, grasping a handful of Asami’s hair. She bit her lip as Asami’s fingers pinched and circled, and her teeth grazed Korra’s neck.

She pulled gently on Korra’s flesh with her teeth before letting go. “Is that okay? You seemed to enjoy it last night,” she whispered. Korra’s brain was drowning in arousal and she could only nod.

Asami kissed the tender, puckered mark she’d made on Korra’s neck and let her fingers linger for a few moments before letting them wander down Korra’s stomach. She took her time but Korra didn’t mind.

As her fingertips reached Korra’s underwear, Asami kissed her cheek. “You good?” she whispered.

Korra’s heart was thumping in her ears and her blood was humming. “Uh-huh!” she managed, nodding eagerly.

Korra caught Asami grinning out of the corner of her eye. “You sure?” Asami asked, her hand trailing back to Korra’s hip.

Korra growled. She was sure that Asami was deliberately teasing her. She hated being teased, she hated being made to wait and to beg. She hated that she loved it so much.

“Because we can stop if you want,” Asami said, leaving a trail of kisses down Korra’s neck. “If you’d rather go back to sleep, that’s fine.”

“I swear, if you keep this up I will fucking …” Her grumbling was interrupted as Asami thrust her hand into Korra’s underwear.

Korra chewed her bottom lip as Asami’s fingers found the wetness between her legs. She still hadn’t let go of Asami’s hair and, knotting her fingers tighter in the mess of curls, she made sure Asami’s lips didn’t leave her neck. She could feel Asami hum into her neck as her fingers began to work their magic.

“I wanna … marry your fingers!” Korra chuckled breathlessly making Asami laugh.

Korra had other things on her mind so it was a while before she realised that the cold touch of Asami’s metal hand on her hip had faded. She let go of Asami’s hair and reached out for the hand that she’d moved to the floor.

Instinctively pulling her hand away slightly as Korra linked her fingers through hers, Asami let Korra guide her hand back to her hip then up to her breast. Squeezing Asami’s hand, Korra arched her back and gasped Asami’s name as she came.

Asami took her slick fingers out of Korra’s damp underwear, sucked them clean and wiped them on her vest. Coming down from her high, Korra leant back and melted into Asami. She let her eyes close and smiled to herself as Asami wrapped an arm around her. Asami kissed her lightly on her cheek and stroked her hair.

“You fallen asleep?” Asami whispered, laughter in her voice.

Korra snapped her eyes open, spun around and pounced on Asami, kissing her fiercely, and they both toppled over into a mess on the floor.

Several orgasms later, they were lying on the floor, their underwear strewn across the cell, a blanket tangled around them.

Asami had lit a cigarette and she was absentmindedly watching the phantom-grey trails of smoke writhing through the dark.

“Empyreal,” Asami whispered to herself, her chest still rising and falling heavily.

Korra almost didn’t hear her. All of Korra’s attention, all her fascination and rapture, was on Asami’s body. She was exploring the geography of Asami’s stomach, following a faint stretch mark with her fingertip as if she were mapping the course of an undiscovered river in the wilderness.

Realising Asami had said something, Korra’s fingers halted their study of Asami’s body.

Korra looked at Asami in confusion. “Huh?”

“Your eyes,” Asami said, her gaze still fixed on the ceiling. “I’ve been trying to think of a word to describe them ever since we met.” She shot a shy glance at Korra. “Empyreal,” she said again, tasting the word experimentally on her tongue. “That’s the word I was looking for.”

Korra propped herself up on her elbow and looked down at Asami quizzically.

“Imperial?”

“ _Em_ -pyreal.”

“What does it mean?”

Asami chewed her lip and looked up at Korra. “Of the highest heavens,” she said, smiling, a look of equal parts embarrassment and adoration on her face.

Korra felt herself blush.

“Dork,” she muttered, kissing her nose and smiling as Asami’s cheeks turned bright pink. “You’re so cute when you blush,” Korra said. “It’s too cute. It’s unhealthily cute. You should stop.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Asami said as she turned even redder. She took an indignant drag on her cigarette before snuffing it out on the floor. “I do not blush. I’m a battle-hardened warrior, not an awkward teenager.”

“You’re always blushing. You have a blushing problem.”

Asami rolled her eyes and pushed Korra away only to immediately cuddle up to her again.

Korra kissed Asami’s lips and for a few minutes they just lay on the floor, smiling at each other, their faces barely a hairsbreadth apart.

The silence was broken by Korra’s rumbling stomach.

“Ugh, I swear I would sell you for a pizza right now if I could,” Korra groaned.

Asami laughed and Korra noticed for the first time how her nose crinkled when she laughed like that.

“Don’t mention pizza in front of me!” Asami said as her stomach began to grumble in unison with Korra’s. “I haven’t had pizza in years! I think I miss pizza more than anything else.”

“What else do you miss?” Korra asked, eager to know more about her cellmate. “And I mean real stuff. Not the wind or the sky or shit like that. Real stuff.”

“Well,” Asami said thoughtfully, “pizza, obviously. Not having to share a bathroom with a hundred grouchy women. Bubble baths!” Asami sighed nostalgically. “Soaking in the bath for an hour, Donna Summer playing, the water so hot it almost hurts …”

“Donna Summer? Seriously?” Korra chuckled. “I can’t believe I’m sleeping with you. You have worse taste in music than Aang!”

“Don’t judge me! Donna Summer is timeless!” Asami curled her lip huffily, fighting a smile. “And who the fuck is Aang?”

“The guy who owned Raava before me. He had a load of mix tapes of crappy old music.” Korra didn’t want to talk about herself, she wanted to hear Asami talking and watch as she chewed her lip thoughtfully, smiling dreamily at the resurfacing memories. “What else do you miss?” Korra asked, stroking her fingers through Asami’s hair and down her cheek.

“My workshop. Crappy singing contest shows. Pizza. King-sized beds. Pizza. Sleeping all morning. Did I already say pizza?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“Umm, Coffee. Silk pyjamas.” A mischievous grin tugged at the corner of Asami’s mouth. “Silk panties.”

“Mmmm,” Korra hummed in agreement, stealing a kiss from Asami’s lips. “Me too.”

“Really?” Asami said raising an eyebrow and running her fingers through Korra’s messy hair, smiling at her hungrily. “You don’t strike me as a silk panties kind of girl.”

“Oh, I like silk panties,” Korra said, a playful growl rising in the back of her throat. “I like wearing them, I like pretty guys wearing them, I like pretty girls wearing them … I like tearing them off pretty girls with my teeth!”

“And I bet you’ve left a trail of pantyless, heartbroken girls in your wake through the galaxy!” Asami laughed.

“Not really,” Korra admitted. “I’m not really much for one-night stands, y’know. I had a thing with a cop back in the Republic for a while.”

“What happened?”

“Oh the usual. I thought he was ‘The One’ the moment I saw him. Always been a bit too impulsive and hot-headed. Cops and bounty hunters don’t really mix very well though. We managed to make it last for a while but in the end it got kinda messy.” Korra’s hand wandered across Asami’s collarbone and up her throat. “I’ve never fallen for anyone like this before though.”

Asami raised her eyebrows and grinned at her. “You’ve … _fallen_ for me?”

“I said no such thing!” Korra growled, crossing her arms defensively. “In fact, I distinctly recall saying … not that.”

Asami was snorting with laughter at Korra’s floundering. “It’s fine,” she chuckled, “I’ll pretend you’re not head over heels in love with me.”

“I am not!” Korra lied.

“Hey, I’m not complaining!” Asami said, still laughing. “We could break out of here and become a space pirate duo. Adventure and romance through the stars! Cunnilingus and cutlasses!”

Korra rolled her eyes and pouted. “No one uses cutlasses anymore. And anyway, I’d have thought you’d want to go back to fighting Kuvira and the Earth Empire.”

Asami shrugged. “I dunno.”

Korra thought Asami was going to elaborate but she didn’t.

“I … I dunno if I’ll go back to bounty hunting either,” Korra said, playing with a lock of Asami’s hair, twirling it between her fingers. “I think I’ve had enough violence for a while. We could just … steal a ship and fly away. Fly as fast and as far as we can from everything. Away from Kuvira and Zaheer and all this shit. We’ll find a planet that hasn’t been settled yet and we’ll build a house there and hunt for our food and have a weird alien cat and …”

“And have sex in the river as the bright green sun rises,” Asami said, smiling, sweeping her hand through the air as if reaching out for some distant horizon. “The sun’s green in this fantasy system of ours. Always liked the idea of a green sun for some reason.”

“And no one will ever find us,” Korra whispered, dreamily.

Korra laughed to herself at the ridiculousness of all this. She’d done the exact same thing countless times with Mako. Lying in bed together, they’d made plans, pretended the world outside didn’t exist, planned for a future that deep down they’d both known was impossible. And look how well that had ended up with him, she though bitterly.

It all seemed so futile and childish but here she was, doing the exact same thing with Asami. She couldn’t help herself. She just felt so sure, so certain, that no matter what the universe had in store for her, she would be at Asami’s side.

“So how are we going to escape?” Korra asked, still clinging to her fantasy. “We could dig our way of the cell and cover the hole with the Ginger poster. No, that’d take years and there’d be no way to reattach the poster once we were in the hole. Plus there’s the whole vacuum of space thing to deal with. We could use your womanly wiles to seduce the guards and steal a shuttle.” Asami rolled her eyes at that. “Oh, okay, you got any better ideas?”

Asami shrugged. “Why would I want to escape? My family’s dead, my home is under siege, and …” Asami stroked Korra’s cheek. “… and you’re here.”

“Really?” Korra asked, the blood rising back into her cheeks and gazing into Asami’s eyes. “You’re really happy here?”

“Happy enough.”

“You don’t think there’s anything left out there worth fighting for?”

“The world’s a fucked up place, Korra,” Asami said seriously, an almost anguished look in her eyes that Korra couldn’t decipher. “I’m just glad we have this … whatever _this_ is!” She kissed Korra tenderly. “I’m just glad I have you.”

“Me too,” Korra said, smiling and kissing Asami. “Ow!” she gasped, recoiling. “You bit my tongue!”

“ _Sorry!_ ”

The floor was uncomfortably cold and Korra pressed her body as close to Asami’s as she could. Nestled up against Asami, Korra closed her eyes. “Asami …” she said after a moment.

“Yeah?” Asami answered quietly, tracing the tattoo on Korra’s arm with her warm fingers.

“You … it’s nothing …” Korra mumbled, turning her face away.

Asami propped herself up on her metal elbow and turned Korra’s face back with a warm hand on her cheek. She looked down at Korra seriously. “Talk to me.”

Korra took a deep breath. “You never … you never touch me with your hand. With your metal hand.”

There was a pained look in Asami’s eyes for a second but she hid it well. “Don’t I?”

“You try not to.” Korra reached out hesitantly and placed her hand gently over Asami’s metal fingers. She looked up at Asami pleadingly. “Are you afraid you’ll hurt me?”

Asami sat up, pulled her hand away from Korra and wrapped her arms around herself, hiding her naked chest. “No,” she said quietly, unconvincingly.

Korra knelt next to her. “Asami, sweetie, you’re not going to hurt me,” she said, stroking the hair off Asami’s shoulder and out of her face, planting tender kisses across her scarred collarbone.

Asami didn’t react to the soft voice or the gentle fingers or the tender lips. She just stared at the blanket that was tangled around her legs and Korra’s waist. She made herself smaller, hugging her chest and retreating further within herself.

“I’m not afraid that you’ll hurt me,” Korra said softly.

“I know,” Asami mumbled, turning her face away.

“Can you feel me?” Korra asked, threading her fingers through Asami’s.

“Yeah. It’s kinda fuzzy. Like I’ve slept on it funny. But … yeah.”

“Then what …”

“Because it’s ugly!” Asami said suddenly and vehemently, her eyes flashing with green anger. Her sudden outburst shocked Korra and she recoiled a little. “Spirits,” she said, laughing to hide how close to tears she was, “I sound like a spoilt, superficial brat.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at it!” Asami shouted, holding her hand up to Korra’s face. “Look at it!” Tears were welling up in her eyes and her voice was breaking. “It’s hideous!

Asami was right. Her metal arm was crude, the metal fingers were almost grotesque, and the elbow joint had been broken several times and rebuilt from scrap metal. Asami had done the best she could but the joint was temperamental and the forearm met the joint at a strange angle. The plastic-like artificial skin that coated the arm was grimy and scuffed and had been completely worn or cut away in some places to reveal the cold, rusted metal beneath. Every time she moved, the arm made grating, whirring noises as if the metal itself were in pain.

“Please don’t cry,” Korra whispered, kissing the tears away from Asami’s cheeks. Korra was sure that if Asami didn’t stop crying then her heart would break like glass. “Please … I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry. Please … please can we just …” Korra felt selfish for asking but couldn’t help herself, “… can we just be kissing again and pretending that everything’s going to be okay?”

“I’m sorry,” Asami said, wiping her eyes on the back of her (non-metallic) hand. “I’m sorry … it’s just … it’s so hard!”

“I know, I know,” Korra crooned.

“It’s so hard.” Apart from a few sniffs and choked gasps, Asami was silent for a while. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she whispered at last, “to look in the mirror every day and not recognise the person looking back at you. I felt like a stranger in my own body for years and I … if it hadn’t been for my parents I ... I don’t think I could have coped, Korra. And then, after all those years … I finally had the body I’d dreamt of, I was finally who I was meant to be, and it was taken from me … Sometimes … sometimes I forget that my arm’s not there anymore and … and I …” Asami’s voice broke completely and Korra couldn’t understand what she was saying.

“Please don’t cry,” Korra pleaded. “You’re the most beautiful, perfect woman I have met in my entire life and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. And I’d hate to have to punch _you_. So please … please don’t cry … you’re beautiful …”

“But this …” Asami said, waving her hand at Korra, “ _this_ isn’t!”

“It’s a part of you,” Korra said, “and every part of you is beautiful.”

Asami ignored Korra and clenched her fist. “At least it’s not as ugly as what’s underneath,” she muttered. “It’s not as bad as … as what’s left.”

“Just because something’s ugly doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful,” Korra said, placing her hand, palm to palm, against the metal one that was inches away from her face. Asami looked up at her, eyes red and brimming with tears.

“I’m sorry …” she whispered.

Korra ignored Asami’s apology and wrapped her arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace, cradling her protectively and gripping Asami’s metal hand. “The under-city of Ba Sing Se,” Korra whispered, stroking Asami’s fingers with one hand and her hair with the other, “have you ever been there?”

Asami shook her head, sniffed, and leant closer against Korra.

“It’s one of the most disgusting, rancid, polluted places in the galaxy,” Korra said. “Looking down at it from the two upper-cities, it looks like a boiling sea of ashes and shit with broken spires of concrete clawing up through the smoke. I nearly threw up after two minutes down there. But when the sun came up, it was …” Korra took a deep breath as she tried to find the words. “It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was like the sky had turned into angelic fire.”

Asami’s sobs had quieted. Korra wasn’t sure whether anything she was saying was helping, she doubted that anything she could say would help heal Asami but the fact she was trying seemed to be enough for Asami at that moment so she carried on.

“And … and my ship, Raava,” Korra said, rubbing Asami’s back, “I found her on a junk heap and fell in love with her instantly. She’s a piece of shit really, more rust than anything else. But she has this grace and quiet beauty about her. So, yes, your arm is ugly, but it’s also beautiful.”

Asami looked up at Korra and smiled sadly. “You’re really shit at this.”

“I know,” Korra said, stroking Asami’s cheek.

Asami blew her nose loudly on a corner of the blanket. “Tell me you love me,” she whispered.

“What?!”

“I’m sad and lonely and cold and hormonal. Just … lie to me. Hold me and tell me that you love me.”

“I … I love you,” Korra whispered, trying desperately not to sound sincere.

“Thank you.” Asami chuckled to herself. “Maybe one day we’ll be able to have a conversation without one of us breaking into tears.”

Korra laughed sardonically. “That would mean that we’re actually normal though!”

They stayed like that, naked and shivering in each other’s arms for a while. Korra listened to Asami’s breathing and played with her hair. Maybe it was their nakedness, maybe it was feeling the heat of Asami’s tears against her chest, whatever it was, Korra had never felt so close to anyone in her life.

“I’m sorry I made you cry,” Korra whispered.

“I’m sorry I’m an emotionally challenged dork with unresolved abandonment issues and a seriously fucked up sense of self-worth and body-image problems,” Asami said, grinning.

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything, but … yeah,” Korra said, jokingly.

“Wow,” Asami gasped pretending to be offended, “you weren’t supposed to agree with me. The next time Eska decides to beat the shit out of you, remind me to let her!”

“How is Eska?” Korra asked as she traced the shell of Asami’s ear with her fingers.

“Kya’s looking after her,” Asami said. Korra noticed that Asami didn’t actually answer her question and guessed that Eska was probably very far from okay.                                                                                                          

“Can we get back into bed?” Korra asked. “My butt’s gone to sleep.”

Asami untangled herself from Korra’s embrace. As she stood up and reached a hand down to Korra, the blanket fell away from her legs and Korra’s heart shuddered. She couldn’t understand how Asami could be so utterly oblivious to how beautiful she was.

Korra took the outstretched hand and pulled herself up. It was only once she was standing that she realised which hand Asami had offered her. Korra gave the metal fingers a squeeze and smiled at Asami before standing on her tip toes to plant a kiss Asami’s lips.

Asami’s freckles popped as the blood rushed into her cheeks. She looked so cute that Korra wanted to punch her in the face.

Korra jabbed Asami in the ribs and kissed her again. “Y’know,” she murmured into Asami’s mouth, her hands on Asami’s hips, “I seem to remember you saying something about … What was it?” she pondered, teasingly. “Something about me begging you to let me come in the laundry room?”

Asami hid her reddening face behind her hand. “Shit! I’d hoped you’d forgotten that!” Asami groaned. “I can’t believe I said that! I was just so, I dunno, _flustered_ after that whole thing in the showers and it was so awkward. I didn’t know what to say and …” Korra shut Asami up with another kiss.

“What do you say, after breakfast,” Korra said sweetly, running her fingers through Asami’s long, wild tangles of deep-black hair, “we see how long it takes before I’m begging?”

“I like the sound of that,” Asami smirked.

Korra would have pounced on Asami after that smirk if the lights hadn’t snapped on at that very moment.

Asami gave her a hurried peck on the cheek before they began to pull their creased clothes back on.

“Do you have any tampons I can borrow?” Korra whispered to Asami as they were standing, waiting for their cell to be inspected.

“Oh, uh, no. I … I don’t need them.”

“Oh, right. Never mind.”

“You’re not …?”

“Oh, no. It just occurred to me that it probably won’t be long and I have no idea where to get any. I guess Kai takes care of that, right?”

“Yeah, but Pema keeps a secret stash in the kitchen that she thinks no one knows about.”

“Isn’t she pregnant though?”

“Very! She uses them as hair curlers. I’m sure she won’t even notice if a few go missing.”

After the inspection, Korra brushed her teeth by the sinks in the communal washroom while Asami waited in the queue for the showers. Korra frowned at her reflection. She looked a mess. She had dark, ashen rings under her eyes, a plethora of red-purple bruises dappled her russet skin, and her lips were swollen, though if from Eska’s fists or Asami’s mouth she couldn’t tell.

At least the gap in her teeth had stopped throbbing, Korra thought dejectedly.

Asami slipped into a shower and shot Korra a flirty smile. Korra nearly choked on the toothpaste. She waited until the coast was clear, brushing her teeth and feigning disinterest in her surroundings. When no one was looking she practically dove, still fully-dressed, into the shower with Asami.

Korra closed the mildewed curtain hurriedly with a sigh of relief. She smiled embarrassedly at Asami as she hurried to tear her clothes off. With the shower sputtering and her clothes in a sodden pile on the floor, Korra caught Asami in a breathless kiss. She knelt down in front of Asami, blazing a trail of kisses as she descended.

As the cold, rust-tasting water poured over them and pooled at her knees, Korra felt like she was kneeling before an altar, before her goddess. Between Asami’s legs, Korra offered up her prayers and supplications with her tongue, and her adoration and devotion with her fingers.

When they eventually emerged from the shower, the bathroom was almost completely empty. The few stragglers gave them some knowing looks as they towelled themselves off.

Sitting on a sink, a towel draped around her shoulders and the taste of Asami still on her tongue, Korra watched entranced as Asami put on her makeup. Korra felt as though she were watching some kind of sacred ritual.

Korra was surprised at just how innovative Asami was with her makeup. She watched as Asami mixed a sachet of some kind of red, powdery candy with Vaseline and applied it to her lips with her finger.

“How does it look?” Asami asked, pursing her lips exaggeratedly.

“Not bad,” Korra said, “but I think it needs testing.”

“Huh?”

Korra leant forwards, almost falling off the sink, and kissed Asami on the mouth. “Mmm,” she hummed, breaking the kiss reluctantly and licking her lips to savour the taste. “Perfect.”

“Ugh, you’ve smudged it!” Asami groaned. Her glowing cheeks betrayed how much she’d enjoyed it though. Asami frowned at the mirror. “And I’m getting zits,” she mumbled. “Brilliant. Korra, sweetie, you got a cigarette on … Stop eating my fucking lipstick, Korra!”

Korra took her finger out of her mouth sulkily as Asami snatched the tin of cherry-red Vaseline away.

“Sorry.”

“You’d better be. Hey, do you think you could do my nails for me?”

With Korra’s help, Asami finished doing her makeup with only a very small amount of it being eaten. Fully dressed and with all their toiletries stuffed into their pockets, Korra and Asami made their way to the canteen.

They were at the very end of the breakfast queue, much to the disappointment of Korra’s stomach.

Korra craned her neck and bounced up on her tiptoes, trying to see how much longer it would take before she could eat.

She sighed and leant back against the wall, resting her head on Asami’s shoulder. She looked at her fingers thoughtfully, picking at her cuticles with her thumbnail.

“I don’t really need my fingers do I? I mean, not _all_ of them.”

“Please don’t eat your fingers.”

Korra sighed. “Fine.”

Asami rolled her eyes.

“Korra …”

“Yeah?”

“What are we going to tell them?” Asami asked.

“What are we going tell who about what?”

“Opal and the others. Are we going to tell them about … about _us_?”

“Shit, I hadn’t thought of that.” Korra could just picture all the teasing and Opal’s stupid, smug face. “I mean, it’s not really any of their business!”

“No, of course not. There’s not really anything to tell, is there!”

“Exactly! We’re not a couple or anything.” Korra looked up at Asami, her eyes wide. “We’re … we’re not a couple are we?”

“I … I don’t think so,” Asami said with a similar look of panic and confusion on her face. “Either way, there’s really no need to tell them. We just act like our normal selves and they won’t suspect anything because there’s really nothing to suspect and can I kiss your ear?”

“What? Yes! No! I dunno.” Korra looked around hurriedly. “Yes,” she whispered.

Asami’s lips brushed along her jaw and Korra balled her fists in the fabric of Asami’s jumpsuit as she nibbled her earlobe.

“We won’t tell them anything,” Asami whispered as the queue shunted forwards.

Everyone else was already there when Korra and Asami sat down at the usual table. Avoiding Opal’s questioning gaze, Korra grunted a vague “Good morning”. She looked intently at her porridge and poked at it suspiciously with her spoon, her appetite fading.

Korra bit her lip to hide her smile as Asami’s hand brushed against her thigh. Korra took Asami’s hand in hers and began playing with her fingers absentmindedly while she did her best to seem focused on her breakfast.

It was a while before Korra realised that no one around the table was talking. She looked up cautiously. Everyone was looking at them.

“What?” Korra asked aggressively as, under the table, her thumb traced gentle circles into Asami’s calloused palm.

Opal smirked at her.

Korra and Asami looked at each other in confusion.

Kai, Lin, Pema, Jinora and a few others sighed and emptied their pockets onto the table. Korra looked at the growing pile of cigarette packs, then back at Asami.

“We may have kind of bet on whether or not you and Asami would have sex when you got out of isolation,” Opal said with, what Korra thought was an undoubtedly evil gleam in her eyes.

“What?!” Korra yelled as Kya, consulting a notebook, began dividing up the winnings. “We … we didn’t … nothing happened … we … What?!”

“Oh, puh-lease!” Opal groaned as she began stacking her substantial and still growing pile of cigarettes. “First of all, you’re holding hands under the table …”

“No we’re not!” Korra and Asami said in unison as Asami whipped her hand out of Korra’s.

Opal rolled her eyes. “You’re both covered in bite-marks …”

Both of them turning purple, Asami tugged her collar up and Korra covered her neck with her hands.

“Korra’s got some of your lipstick on her ear and …”

“Okay!” Korra yelled, trying futilely to rub the lipstick off the wrong ear. “We get the idea! Asami and I did the thing! You happy?”

Opal grinned at her. “How many times?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

“What? We need to know for … umm …”

“Science,” Kai said.

“You bet on how many times as well, didn’t you?” Asami sighed.

Opal shrugged and smiled sweetly. “What can I say? You too are just so damn entertaining.”

Korra growled at her making everyone laugh. They were still laughing when Bolin walked over, beaming broadly. His messy hair was sticking up at the back and he was munching on an apple.

“Morning, ladies and gent,” Bolin said cheerfully. “Everybody sleep well?” he asked innocently but shooting a wicked grin at Korra and Asami. He grabbed a handful of the cigarette packs that were still scattered across the table and stuffed them into his pocket.

He winked at Korra and Asami and strode off into the throng of hungry inmates.

“What the fuck?” Korra leapt to her feet. “He can’t just take our …”

“Oh, umm, actually …” Opal said, tapping her fingers anxiously on the table. “Bo … He kinda … bet as well …”

Korra sunk back into her seat and groaned, burying her face in her hands. Asami rubbed her back soothingly.

“So … how many times?” Kai asked cautiously as if he were afraid Korra would leap across the table and throttle him (which, to be fair, she was contemplating). “Once? Twice? Three times?” Kai forgot his fear and leant forwards, eyes wide in disbelief. “ _… Four times?_ ”

Korra and Asami glanced at each other.

“Four and half if you count when you caught us in the shower,” Korra mumbled.

Kya, evidently the only one who’d won that particular bet, burst into raucous laughter.

“Asami, your eyes are red,” a girl Korra didn’t recognise said innocently.

“No, they aren’t, Ikki,” Asami hissed.

“Yes, they are! Have you been crying?!”

“No!”

“Okay, who bet Asami would cry when they did it?” Opal asked loudly, barely containing her laughter.

“I didn’t cry when we …”

“I had Korra as the crier.”

“Same.”

“Me too.”

“Damn it, Asami.”

“Yup, I had Korra too.”

“Why did everyone think I’d cry?!” Korra demanded sulkily.

“The tough ones are always the ones who get emotional after sex,” Kya said, smirking at Lin.

“Oh, so I’m not tough?” Asami said in outrage.

“You’re a huge dork!” Kai laughed.

“You’re _both_ huge dorks!” Jinora added.

Korra nodded resignedly and poked at her porridge again.

“Are you okay?” Opal asked. “You’re not eating.”

“I already ate,” Korra said, looking wistfully at Asami and wishing she had some more of those peanut butter sachets.

“Ewwww! Gross!” Opal said, pretending to gag.

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean that!” Korra said, waving her hands desperately. Asami elbowed her in the ribs and smirked at her. “Well … yes, _that_ … but that’s not what I meant.”

Korra could feel her cheeks burning and wanted the floor to open up and swallow her.

“You’re so cute when you’re flustered,” Asami whispered, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

“You’re cute too,” Korra mumbled.

Opal pretended to stick a finger down her throat and made a retching sound. “Blaurgh! When’s the wedding?!”

“Well,” Asami said seriously but with that cheeky look in her eye that Korra knew so well, “we haven’t really talked about it, but I’m up for it if you are.”

Korra took Asami’s hand in hers. “We should start planning as soon as possible!”

“I want a spring wedding.”

“Me too!”

“What about children?”

“Absolutely!”

“I mean there’d be some … biological issues with that but …”

“Adoption’s always an option.”

“Yeah, exactly! Ikki’s kinda cute. Ikki! How do you feel about letting us adopt you?”

“It’s no fun when you play along!” Opal grumbled.

Korra grinned malevolently. “And Opal’s not invited to the wedding!”

“You bitch!” Opal yelled, slamming her fist on the table and trying not to laugh. “I should be your maid of fucking honour! Asami! Talk some sense into your woman!”

“Opal has a pet!” Pema said loudly, obviously trying to change the conversation before a fight broke out.

“Yeah, his name’s Bolin!” Korra laughed.

Opal scowled at her and catapulted a spoonful of porridge across the table at her. She missed and the cold, congealing slop hit Asami square in the face.

“Oh, shit!” Opal gasped.

There were a few seconds of stunned silence that somehow managed to spread across the entire canteen before everyone around the table broke out into a cacophony of laughter.

Asami got to her feet, wiped the mess out of her eyes, grabbed Korra by the arm and marched out of the canteen.

“Where … where are we going?” Korra asked, choking back her laughter.

“I’m gonna fuck your brains out in the library,” Asami said sternly, anger boiling away beneath the surface.

“Oh,” Korra said, slightly stunned. She took a meditative breath and chewed her lip. “Cool.”

They slipped past the feathered librarian and plunged into the labyrinth of book-laden shelves. Glowing dust motes hung in the air like fireflies as Asami pinned Korra against a bookcase. It wobbled under her and a few books fell from the top shelf, thudding as they hit the floor.

Asami practically tore Korra’s boots and jumpsuit off before she knelt down in front of her. She pulled Korra’s underwear down to her knees and nibbled the insides of her thighs.

“Fuck!” Korra gasped as Asami’s tongue found a beautiful rhythm.

“Shush!” Asami hissed, giggling a little.

Korra gripped the bookcase and arched her back. She clamped down on her bottom lip, trying to keep quiet but Asami found a gloriously sensitive spot and Korra couldn’t help herself. She threw her head back and another half-whimper, half-yell escaped.

“You’re gonna get us caught!” Asami whispered, looking up at Korra, a string of saliva clinging to her lip.

Korra clenched her jaw and gritted her teeth as sweat ran down her brow and fireworks exploded inside her. She dug her nails into the wood of the bookcase and gasped for breath.

“Fuck! Asami, I …”

“Right,” Asami said exasperatedly. Korra’s hips rose up following Asami’s mouth as she sat back on her ankles. She pulled Korra’s underwear the rest of the way down her legs, mumbling frustratedly under her breath.

“Asami?” Korra whined, craving Asami’s touch.

“Shush!” Asami ordered. She scrunched the underwear into a ball with her fist and stuffed them into Korra’s mouth. Korra pulled a face at Asami that was somewhere between surprise, confusion, and amusement. “There, that’s better,” Asami whispered, tracing Korra’s lips with her thumb, her lips hovering a hair’s breadth from Korra’s.

“Mmm-npph!” Korra muttered.

Asami smirked and knelt back down between Korra’s legs. Korra made a throaty rumble and grabbed a fistful of Asami’s hair.

Her breathing was heavy, saliva was creeping out of the corner of her mouth, and the bookcase was creaking loudly as if it were about to break in two as Korra approached her climax.

Screaming silently, Korra looked up, eyelids flickering. Her heart stopped as she locked eyes with Opal.

Opal hadn’t realised what was happening yet and was standing there, a whiskered, orange face peeking out of her jumpsuit.

“Korra, I never got a chance to introduce you … to … Pabu …”

“OPE-UH! FUHH ORFF!” Korra and Asami shouted, both of their voices muffled.

“SHIT! Sorry! Sorry sorry _sorry_ , my bad!” Opal spluttered, covering Pabu’s eyes with her hand. “I’m so sorry you had to see that, Pabu,” Opal whispered as she ran to safety to avoid the book Korra had thrown at her.

When they were alone again, Korra slumped down onto the floor and pulled her soaked underwear out of her mouth. She looked at them dismally, less than eager to put them back on. Asami sat down next to her with a sigh. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and blew a strand of hair out of her face.

“Did you … y’know?”

“No, Opal kinda ruined the moment,” Korra said grumpily.

“We can have another go later, if you want.” Asami laced her fingers through Korra’s.

Korra nodded. They sat together, hand in hand, watching the swirling specks of dust suspended in the air as their breathing calmed.

Asami was the first to break the silence. “So …” she said quietly, “is this like a thing now?”

“A thing?”

“Yeah, you know … a _thing_?”

“You mean us?”

“Yeah. Us and … y’know … doing this?”

They were silent for a few seconds that felt to Korra like an eternity.

“I … I don’t know,” she said eventually. “I mean it’s kinda early to know isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Asami said quietly. “But maybe … maybe someday, right?”

Korra’s heart missed a beat. It missed _several_ beats. “Sure, maybe someday.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Asami said, kissing Korra’s nose. “Ready for another go?”

“Uh-uh,” Korra said, shaking her head and holding up her damp underwear. “It’s your turn.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been so long since the last update! Sorry, I always get so lazy over the summers. This chapter (and the next few ones actually) is kind of a 'quiet before the storm' thing so it's probably not worth the wait.

Korra’s period had come earlier than anticipated. Her cramps were worse than they’d ever been and she didn’t have any tampons. To make matters worse, over the past few days nearly everything in the prison that could have malfunctioned, broken, burst, or burnt did just that. So Asami hadn’t been able to ‘borrow’ any of Pema’s secret stash of tampons like she’d promised.

All this was why, while Korra was stuck in the bathroom rinsing her underwear out in the sinks and nursing her cramps, Asami was lying stretched out on a kitchen counter, a potato peeler poking her in the ribs, and her arm stuck down behind an ancient, rusty, soot-caked oven.

Asami tried and failed to wriggle herself out of the reach of the peeler and grimaced as she felt the tendons in her scarred shoulder scream in silent pain. Asami swore under her breath.

“You okay there?” Ikki asked from the sink, soap suds up to her elbows.

“Yeah … great!” Asami said, her voice a hoarse, strained rasp. If she could just reach a little further …

“What was it you said was broken?” Ikki asked as she sloshed murky grey-green water around in a dented saucepan.

“The … agh! … the gas feed tubey thing,” Asami said, gritting her teeth. Her metal fingertips scraped against the back of the oven, screeching loudly.

“I thought you were an actual mechanic engineer person,” Ikki said, frowning suspiciously at Asami.

“I am!” Asami hissed indignantly. “That’s the … the technical term!”

“Ah,” Ikki said, unconvinced.

Even if she could reach the box of tampons that she knew was taped to the back of the oven, Asami realised that it would be next to impossible to smuggle them out of the kitchen while Ikki was doing the after-dinner washing up. She’d been lucky that the ovens had been on the fritz the other day or else she wouldn’t have even gotten this far. The inmates would often joke that Pema’s kitchen was better guarded than the warden’s private quarters and harder to get into than Kuvira’s knickers.

She was so close! She had to think. How could she get Ikki to fuck off without raising suspicion?

Asami pulled her arm out from behind the oven and sat up. She plucked the spider webs off her fingers and blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes.

“Hey, Ikki, umm, the damn thing’s stuck,” Asami said as she pulled her feet up onto the countertop. “Could you run to the laundry and grab my toolbox for me? I left it there this morning.”

“I dunno,” Ikki said, biting her lip nervously and glancing over her shoulder. “Pema’ll be pretty pissed if I don’t get all this done.”

Asami pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of her jumpsuit pocket and smirked as Ikki’s eyes lit up.

“Pretty please?” she said, batting her eyelashes and throwing the pack to her. Ikki sent clouds of foam flying as she snatched the pack out of the air.

Ikki wiped her hands on a dishcloth, brown with grease, and pocketed the cigarettes. “Since you asked so nicely,” she said, smirking.

“You’re too young to smoke!” Asami shouted after her as Ikki shot out of the kitchen.

“But not too young to be in prison apparently!” Ikki yelled back.

Asami laughed and rolled her eyes. She threw the potato peeler across the kitchen then shot a menacing look at the oven and cracked her knuckles.

“Right, you fucker,” she whispered before plunging her arm back into the tight, dusty gloom between the oven and the wall.

She was sweating and swearing when at last her unwilling metal fingers closed around the coveted cardboard box.

“Please don’t be stuck,” Asami whispered over and over as she caught her breath and began to pull her arm out. “Please don’t be stuck please don’t be stuck please don’t be stuck please don’t be stuck …”

Asami winced as her arm made another ear-splitting, metal-on-metal scraping noise.

“This would probably really hurt if I hadn’t already lost my arm,” Asami chuckled bitterly.

When she had finally extricated her arm from behind the oven, Asami had to swallow a squeal of delight. The box was at least half full. They wouldn’t last very long but Kai would have a new ‘shipment’ in soon. Asami swung her legs down off the counter and shoved the box into her jumpsuit.

She pushed herself off the counter, picked up her toolbox, and sauntered over to the huge fridge on the far side of the kitchen. She heaved the door open and smiled as a cold mist washed over her.

“Hey, Pema,” Asami called out to the empty kitchen as she reached into the icy depths of the fridge. “I’m gonna take a bottle of water. That okay?” There was no answer. “Oooh, can I take this orange-half too?” Asami asked. “Why thank you, Pema,” she said in a sweet sing-song voice.

She pocketed the clingfilmed orange and the chilled water, slammed the fridge shut, and strode out of the kitchen. As she was leaving, something caught Asami’s eye. A can of treacle was sitting on a shelf near what passed for a spice rack. She sidled up to the shelf and peered at the can inquisitively. She chewed her lip contemplatively, hungrily, and looked over her shoulder like a guilty puppy.

“Well,” Asami said under her breath, chewing on her thumbnail, “if they _didn’t_ want someone to take you they wouldn’t have just left you here, would they?” In a flash, the can had vanished into Asami’s toolbox and she sped out of the kitchen at a breakneck pace.

Asami ran back in a few seconds later, skidding to a halt on the recently mopped tiles. She grabbed a pair of spoons from a drawer and ran off again, grinning.

She sprinted down the brightly lit corridors, her heavy work boots echoing off the metal walls and her breath ringing in her chest. Asami yelped as she turned a corner and careened right into a guard.

“Inmate!” she barked. “What the fu- oh, it’s you!”

“Sorry!” Asami said hurriedly, picking up her toolbox and helping the guard back onto her feet. “Umm, Varrick’s gotten himself stuck in an air vent. Again.”

The guard rolled her eyes and straightened her uniform. “So why are you in such a hurry?” she asked, laughing sardonically. “Do us all a favour and leave him there!”

“I’m going to!” Asami said, already halfway down the corridor. “I just want to watch him squirm and jeer at him.”

She heard the guard say something about shoving a spanner up something but Asami was too far away to hear exactly what she’d said. Still, she approved of the overall sentiment.

Asami knew the labyrinthine network of corridors in the satellite like the back of her hand. Even so, she had to concentrate or else there was a very good chance even she might get lost. She bolted past the laundry room, holding her breath subconsciously and praying that Ikki wouldn’t see her with her toolbox.

Asami’s lungs were burning by the time she made it to the bathroom. She realised that she was out of condition. There had been a time when a run like that would have barely broken a sweat. She decided unhappily that it was about time she cut down on the cigarettes.

Only one of the toilet cubicles had a door and Asami dropped her toolbox down outside it. She knocked on the graffiti-scrawled door with a metal knuckle.

“Korra?” she asked breathlessly. “You in there, sweetie?”

There was a grunt from the cubicle and Asami pushed the door open.

Korra was sitting on the toilet. Her forehead was creased with discomfort and she was clutching her stomach but she managed a smile as Asami kicked her toolbox into the cubicle.

“I got the tampons,” Asami said proudly as she squatted down in front of Korra.

“Took you long enough,” Korra grumbled.

“Oh, you know what? Suddenly I can’t remember where I put them!” Asami said, patting the pockets of her jumpsuit, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Hmm, _weird_ , huh?”

“Sorry,” Korra said, dragging her fingers through her messy hair.

“S’okay, you’ve got a right to be grumpy,” Asami said soothingly, a comforting hand on Korra’s knee. She fished the box out of her jumpsuit and handed a tampon to Korra. “There aren’t all that many left,” Asami said apologetically as she put the box back in her pocket. She carried on talking while Korra put the tampon in. “There’s maybe enough for a day or two. I gave Ikki my last pack of cigarettes so I’ll have to put Kai in a headlock or flush his head down the toilet to get you some more. Won’t be the first time I’ve done that so it shouldn’t be a problem. Though I did it for cookies and porn, not tampons,” Asami joked.

“You’re so hot when you talk about beating people up,” Korra said, smiling genuinely for the first time all day. “Makes me all funny inside. Like I just want you to tear my clothes off.”

Asami felt her cheeks getting hot and looked away. Korra flicked the tampon wrapper at her and called her a dork but there was a softness in her voice that made Asami’s pulse stutter.

“I got you some water,” Asami mumbled, handing the bottle to Korra.

Korra gulped down several mouthfuls and sighed in relief as she pressed the perspiring bottle against her forehead.

“You’re the best,” Korra mumbled.

“I know.”

Korra leant forwards to kiss her. Asami’s heart was in her ears as Korra’s lips met hers.

“Ptttb,” Korra spluttered, pulling away slightly. “Got your hair in my mouth.”

“Sorry,” Asami whispered, tying her hair back into a ponytail.

Korra’s smile twisted into a grimace of pain and she rubbed her eyes, her breath catching in her throat.

“Fuck,” she whispered as Asami reached up to stroke her cheek. “They’re not normally this bad.”

Asami leant forwards so that her forehead was pressed against Korra’s sternum and clenched her metal fist, placing it gently against Korra’s stomach. “I’m gonna fucking punch your punk ass uterus for hurting you,” Asami growled quietly.

Korra snorted with laughter. Asami frowned at her and her lip curled in annoyance. How dare she be so fucking cute when she laughed like that!

“I think I read something in one of Pema’s trashy magazines about using massages or reflexology or something for period cramps. Or maybe it was chi manipulation. I could give it a go if you want? Y’see, cramps happen because the muscles …”

Korra shook her head and laughed. “No way! I remember how your last massage ended!”

Asami smiled embarrassedly and bit her lip.

“You okay?” she asked. Korra had turned deathly pale and was hunching over, gritting her teeth.

Korra’s head fell forwards and she groaned, slamming a fist against the side of the stall. “I’m just … so sick of this!” Asami kissed her clammy forehead and motioned to her to have some more water. “Sorry,” Korra sighed as she lifted the bottle to her bruised, chapped lips. “It just really fucking hurts and I really, _really_ hate it in here.”

“In this toilet or this prison?”

Korra shrugged and waved her hand vaguely. “Here.”

“Well,” Asami said as she brushed a strand of hair behind Korra’s ear, “this toilet does stink like hell. You need a change of scenery. You wanna maybe go to the library later when you’re feeling up to it?”

“Uh-uh, not the library! Never again!” Korra said, smiling despite the pain.

“Why not?”

“Well, first of all there’s not enough privacy …”

“Opal said she was sorry!”

“Secondly, y-”

“There’s a bit near the encyclopaedias that’s pretty secluded. If we stack them u-”

“ _Secondly!_ You sneezed in my face last time we did it there!”

“It was the dust! I have allergies!”

“You got snot in my mouth!”

“I’ve already said I was sorry! How many times am I going to have to apologise for that?”

“Until your dying breath,” Korra grumbled as she climbed to her feet and pulled her underwear up. “I’ve brushed my teeth like a hundred times since then and my mouth still feels dirty.”

“Your mouth has been in worse places,” Asami pointed out, smirking mischievously up at Korra as she pulled her jumpsuit on. Korra pointed her finger accusingly at Asami and opened her mouth to say something but changed her mind, narrowing her eyes and pouting at Asami instead. “I mean my vagina.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Korra huffed. “What about the laundry room? It’s not exactly quiet there but I could do with a nap on a pile of warm laundry right about now.”

Asami shook her head and sucked her teeth. “I think I’d better avoid Ikki for a while.” Asami laughed to herself. “We could break into the warden’s private quarters. I bet he’s got an en-suite and a four-poster bed with a simply heavenly mattress!”

“I don’t really care where we go so long as it’s not our cell,” Korra said, almost pleadingly. Asami had noticed that Korra had been avoiding their cell whenever she could recently. Sometimes, when she thought Asami wasn’t looking, she’d stare into the ink-black shadows of the cell with a look on her face as if she’d seen a ghost.

Asami leapt to her feet and grabbed Korra. “I know just the place!”

She ushered Korra out of the cramped toilet stall, one hand draped over Korra’s shoulder and the other clamped tightly around the handle of her toolbox. Korra had to stop to catch her breath twice as Asami guided her through the tangled warren of corridors.

The guards barely gave Asami a second glance and let her through the doors without any hassle. They were all so used to the prison falling to pieces around them that Asami wandering the corridors with a toolbox had become an almost daily occurrence. A few of them glanced questioningly at Korra following sluggishly behind her but Asami just smiled sweetly as they passed and kept walking confidently.

Unsurprisingly the main elevator was broken again so they had to trudge down what felt like miles of stairs until they reached a dark, dusty sublevel that was almost completely deserted.

Asami checked that the coast was clear and pushed a breathless Korra into a gloomy storeroom.

“Ow! Fucking shit!” Korra grumbled as she tripped over a box of cleaning products and a stack of mops and brooms collapsed behind her. She backed into a corner, rubbing her head and swearing under her breath.

“Sorry!” Asami whispered, closing the door quietly behind her. She took a step closer and stoked Korra’s cheek with her fingertips. She could feel Korra’s breath on her cheek and time seemed to slow down … until Korra broke the silence.

“Is this where you wanted to take me?” Korra gasped, pushing Asami away slightly. “To a broom closet? To make out?!” Korra shook her head disappointedly as a smile creased her pouting lips. She pulled Asami closer and brushed her lips teasingly against hers. “You are the worst kind of person, Asami.”

Asami’s knees were quaking under her as she disentangled herself from Korra’s grasp. “Actually,” Asami said quietly, not fully trusting her voice to stay even, “I wanted to show you this.”

“Show me what?”

“I was pausing dramatically. Can you hold this for a second?” Asami took out a ratchet spanner and passed the toolbox to Korra. She knelt down next to a sealed drain cover, rolled her sleeves up, and cracked her knuckles.

Last time she’d been down here, Asami had made sure to leave the nuts fairly loose but she was soon sweating and straining, trying to undo the rust-fastened hatch. She had to grip the spanner with both hands as her metal fingers refused to grip the tool properly.

At last, the first nut came free. Asami breathed a sigh of relief and dragged the back of her hand across her sweat-slick forehead. The next nut was even stiffer than the first and Asami winced slightly as feedback from her cybernetic arm shot through her shoulder.

“Asami, are you okay?” Korra asked, crouching down behind her and placing a hand on her shoulder.

“ _Yup!_ ” Asami said, trying to sound confident though she was painfully aware of how high-pitched and pitiful her voice sounded. “I … I’m not as fit as I used to be. Just need a quick breather.” She muttered a “Thank you” as Korra passed the bottle to her. As she gulped down a mouthful of water, Asami caught Korra frowning at her. “What?” she asked, choking back self-conscious laughter.

Korra took the bottle back, still frowning. “Are you sure you should be doing … whatever it is you’re doing? Don’t hurt yourself.”

Asami rolled her eyes and scoffed, though deep down she was secretly touched by Korra’s concern.

“Hey,” Asami said cockily, twirling the spanner between her fingers, “which of us got beaten up by – oh, crap!” Asami swore under her breath as she crawled across the floor to retrieve her spanner.

When she’d found her spanner again and returned to the bolted-down drain cover, Korra was chewing her lip, desperately trying not to laugh.

“Watch it!” Asami warned jokingly, waving her spanner threateningly.

After a lot of sweating and swearing and straining, the last three nuts came loose and Asami heaved the heavy hatch open. A faint smell of stale sewage wafted up from the dark opening which made Asami’s eyes water. Korra turned a strange shade of green.

“We’re … we’re not going … down there, are we?” Korra asked fearfully.

“Oh come one,” Asami said, trying to sound more enthusiastic than she felt. “It’s not that bad.” Korra arched her eyebrows at Asami in disbelief. “Okay, it’s bad,” Asami conceded, “but this pipe isn’t used anymore. The level below us has been pretty much abandoned but this is really the only way we can go without being seen by cameras or setting off alarms. And trust me,” she said, gripping Korra’s shoulder and grinning at her, “It’s gonna be worth it!”

“I highly doubt that,” Korra grumbled as she followed Asami reluctantly down into the old sewage pipe.

They crawled along through the rancid darkness for a few hundred metres. Asami had been down this pipe enough times in the past few months to find the loose panel with absolutely no problem. With one firm kick, the bottom of the pipe fell open.

Asami had to help Korra out of the pipe which turned out to be harder than she’d anticipated. She dropped her toolbox, elbowed Korra in the face twice, and twisted her ankle when she jumped down to the ground.

After a moment to nurse their injuries and fill their lungs with clean air, Asami led Korra through a broken door that was hanging from its hinges and down a rickety metal spiral staircase.

“Careful of that step,” Asami said as they made their way down the stairs. “That one’s rusted almost the whole way through.”

Korra was gripping the rail tightly, her knuckles white and beads of sweat clinging to her brow. Asami paused to let Korra catch up with her. “Are you taking me to your sex-dungeon?” Korra asked, forcing a smile.

Asami rolled her eyes. “Yes, Korra,” she said sarcastically and continuing her descent, “I’m taking you to my sex-dungeon.”

“Really?!”

“ _No!_ ”

“Awww …”

“I thought we could watch the sunrise together,” Asami said, flashing Korra a toothy grin.

“You what?!”

“We’re almost at the bottom!” Asami said loudly, taking the last few steps two at a time.

“Asami? What do you mean …?” Korra almost flew down the steps, her boots clanging on the corroding metal stairs. “Asami? What … _Asami!_ What are you … OH!”

Asami smiled to herself as starlight illuminated Korra’s stunned face. “It’s an old observation deck,” Asami explained quietly, gesturing vaguely and embarrassedly at the windows that encircled them.

Asami set her toolbox down on the floor and began gnawing a fingernail, worried that Korra wouldn’t be impressed by her secret hiding place. She moved onto the next nail as Korra walked trance-like around the entire circumference of the deck. Korra stopped by one of the huge dirt-smeared windows that surrounded them on all sides and pressed a hand lightly against the glass. From where Asami was standing, chewing her nails frantically, it looked as if Korra was trying to grasp one of the clusters of stars that drifted across the pitch-black sky beneath them.

Asami suddenly became awkwardly aware of just how cluttered and messy and filthy and awful the observation bay was. She felt like a schoolchild who’d let their crush into their bedroom and forgotten to hide all the stuffed animals and piles of laundry. While Korra was still transfixed by the stars, Asami quietly kicked several months’ worth of food wrappers and old cigarette butts out of sight behind a pile of boxes.

Before it had been totally forgotten about, the observation deck had served as a greenhouse for a time. The floor was littered with rotten leaves, empty plant pots, tubs of dried out compost, and dead plants slowly crumbling to dust. Asami had tried to save a few of the plants but hadn’t had much luck. A scraggly bonsai tree in a dented teapot and a half-dead, leggy spider plant sat in pride of place on a pile of water damaged crates that someone had abandoned there.

Above them, the hull of the satellite stretched to the infinite horizons like a storm-black night sky above an ocean of stars. An epicormic mess of solar panels, gantries, and antennae sprouted from the satellite so that the whole thing looked like a huge, rotting, metal tree trunk.

“The sun’ll come up soon,” Asami said, finally satisfied with the mess and moving to stand beside Korra, fidgeting nervously. “Well, it comes up every forty minutes or so because of the spin of the satellite, but anyway … it’s really cool actually, it’s basically an upside-down sunrise because of the way the prison spins and- mmmph!”

Korra had grabbed Asami’s face and pressed her lips against hers. “Shush,” she whispered as she pulled away, grinning crookedly. “Don’t ruin the moment, you nerd.”

“Sorry,” Asami mumbled, her cheeks burning beneath Korra’s hands.

The burning got worse when Korra let go of her face, laced her fingers through Asami’s, and gave them a gentle squeeze. Asami felt her palm sweating and hoped Korra wouldn’t notice. Hand in hand they waited as the constellations drifted past until the first rays of sunlight appeared.

“Oh, Asami!” Korra gasped, her mismatched blue eyes brimming with tears as the observation deck flooded with sunlight. “It’s … I’d forgotten how … Shit.” Korra wiped her eyes and laughed.

Asami let go of Korra’s hand and slipped her arm around Korra’s waist. “Yeah. It’s kind of amazing.”

“Thank you,” Korra said, resting her head on Asami’s shoulder.

They stood like that in a long, warm silence until the spin of the prison took the sun out of sight and the observation deck was filled with cold starlight again.

Asami had never seen Korra in natural sunlight before. She had only ever seen her in the gloom of their cell and under the harsh flickering of the prison’s electric lights. As the sunlight washed over them, Korra seemed to glow, her skin looking like molten amber. A lump had risen into Asami’s throat as she’d watched the sun caressing Korra’s bare skin.

Korra jumped in surprise as Asami reached out a hand and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. She let her hand rest on Korra’s cheek as she gazed down at her. The lump in her throat sunk like a pebble down into her stomach. Asami wondered a little bitterly if this was what love felt like.

Korra smiled shyly up at Asami, leaning into her touch.

“What are you doing?” Korra laughed quietly. “Why are you touching my face?”

Asami pulled Korra closer with a metal finger hooked into the knotted sleeves around her waist. Her lips met Korra’s in an ephemeral kiss and the lump in her stomach turned into butterflies. ‘Yup,’ Asami thought as Korra got over her shock and kissed back, ‘this is what love feels like.’

Korra pulled Asami closer and closer, her fingers woven tightly into her hair, trailing kisses along her jaw and back to her lips. Asami could barely hear her breathless gasps or the sound of their lips over the blood rushing in her ears. When Korra began sucking on Asami’s bottom lip, Asami could have sworn she felt herself go weak at the knees.

Korra pulled away and Asami was half hoping that Korra was going to pin her up against the windows and … well, fuck her brains out. Instead Korra breathed a weary sigh and rested her forehead against Asami’s chest. She tapped Asami’s shoulder lightly like a defeated wrestler.

“Sorry,” Korra mumbled into Asami’s jumpsuit.

Asami laughed, trying to hide her disappointment. “Period cramps?” Asami asked, stroking Korra’s hair soothingly.

“Mmm-hmm,” Korra groaned.

“Come on, sit down. And take your jumpsuit off. That thing’s filthy,” Asami said, helping Korra take her boots and jumpsuit off. She guided her down onto the floor with gentle hands so that she was facing the windows and the stars.

Korra groaned huffily. “Asami, it’s not a big deal!”

Asami shushed her and sat down behind her.

“I don’t like seeing you hurting. Please.”

Korra sighed and hung her head. “Okay. Fine.”

Asami placed her cold metal hand on Korra’s shoulder, firmly but comfortingly. “Sweetie, you could barely get out of bed this morning.” Korra only offered a grunt in reply. “You spent an hour in the foetal position.”

“I know,” Korra snapped. She immediately relaxed and reached a hand up to touch Asami’s. “I’m sorry. I … I don’t like being weak like this.”

‘“Weak’ is the last thing you are.” Asami kissed the back of Korra’s neck. “I can only imagine what it feels like.” Asami wanted to wrap her arms around Korra but she couldn’t bring herself to – not with that ugly, cold, warped _thing_ that passed as a right arm.

Korra sighed, her shoulders quivering slightly. “What hokum-pokum did Pema’s magazine say?” Asami snorted her laugher back. Korra twisted around and scowled stormily at her. “What?”

“’Hokum-pokum’? Seriously? What are you? Eighty?!”

“Everyone says that! _Shut up!_ ” Korra said, pouting defiantly. She was clearly not enjoying being laughed at which just made Asami laugh even more. “What did the stupid thing say?” she huffed before turning back around.

“It said that menstrual cramps can be caused by a blockage in your chi,” Asami said as she lifted Korra’s vest to expose her lower back. She traced the groove of her spine with a fingertip making Korra shiver. “There are chakras … these, I guess, pools of energy … throughout your body that your chi flows through.” Asami placed a feather-light finger at the base of Korra’s spine. “This is your first chakra. And this …” Asami said softly, gliding her finger higher up Korra’s back and tracing an inverted triangle onto her flesh, “… this is your second chakra, here at your sacrum. Now, I dunno about all this chi crap but there are pressure-point-nerve-cluster-things round here that if you massage, should relax all your fucked-up muscles and help with the pain.”

“Should you be messing around with pressure points and stuff?” Korra asked.

“Oh, it’s perfectly safe,” Asami said reassuringly. “Probably,” she whispered.

Korra shrugged. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Don’t say things like that! That’s just asking for something bad to happen!” Asami gasped, throwing her arms up in mock despair. “I … I … I can’t do this now! I’m gonna end up paralysing you, I know it! You’ll never walk again, Korra! You’ll never walk again!”

“You are so overdramatic,” Korra groaned, though Asami liked to think she was smiling.

“Okay, okay. Here we go.” Asami said, cracking her knuckles as Korra lifted up the back of her vest. Asami placed he palms against Korra’s back, fingers pointing away from her spine. Her thumbs brushed Korra’s skin. Asami whipped her hands away from Korra’s body as though she’d thrust her hands into a fire.

“What is it?” Korra asked, twisting around, concern in her voice and eyes.

Asami looked down at her hands, one calloused and warm, the other metal and cold.

“Korra,” Asami whispered, her voice thick with emotion, “I- I don’t want to …”

“Asami, we talked about this,” Korra whispered, kneeling in front of her. Her scabbed hands held Asami’s metal hand gently. Asami wished she could feel the warmth of Korra’s grip. But all she felt was an electrical ghost of a touch in the back of her mind.

“I know,” Asami said, avoiding Korra’s eyes. “And I’ve … I’ve been trying but … I really don’t think I should be poking about with this thing.” She squeezed Korra’s hand and her fingers whirred loudly as if to prove her point.

Korra let go of Asami’s hand, slowly, reluctantly, never taking her eyes off Asami’s. “Okay,” she said at last. “Can you do it one handed or do you want me to help?”

“I thought I was supposed to be the one helping you,” Asami said, laughing before she could stop herself.

“Well, why don’t you teach me how to do it for myself?” Korra suggested. “Do you want me to take my top off?” she added with a smirk.

“Better not,” Asami decided. “The sun’ll be back up soon … or we’ll be facing it or … whatever … it’ll be back again and you don’t want to get a sunburn. I got a pretty bad one about a week before your sorry ass showed up here.”

“Okay. So you’re gonna show me how to do it, right?” Korra asked, smiling as she turned around and sat between Asami’s outstretched legs.

“Sure.” Asami took a deep breath, though she wasn’t sure why, and held Korra’s vest up with her cybernetic hand. “Umm, put your hands together at the base of your spine here,” she said, guiding Korra’s hands with a warm and gentle touch so that her fingers were pointing down towards her tailbone.

“Like this?”

“Yup. Now move your hands into a ‘V’ shape. Move your pinkies closer together. Yeah, that’s it.” With her fingertip, Asami traced the ‘V’ where Korra’s fingers met. “There are two pressure points on either side that should line up with the first and second knuckles of your ring fingers. Have you found them?”

“Maybe? I think so.”

“They should feel more tender than the rest of your back. Kinda lumpy.”

“Umm … Yeah, I can feel them.”

“Okay, so now you know where they are, move your hands, umm, like this.” Asami placed her hand against Korra’s back, her thumb pointing towards Korra’s spine and her fingers towards Korra’s hip. Korra moved her hands to where Asami showed her. “Now press your thumbs in and up so they go, like, over the pressure points, I guess. And then hold it for a while.”

Asami watched and waited with baited breath as Korra followed her directions. After a few minutes Korra let her head fall forwards. She let out a throaty sigh, her arms still akimbo and her thumbs pressing into her back.

“Did it work?” Asami asked, anxiously.

“I guess. Yeah. Yeah, it’s working.”

“Keep holding it,” Asami whispered, leaning forwards to kiss the curve of Korra’s neck. She remembered reading something else in that grease-stained, dog-eared magazine that she’d found hidden at the back of Pema’s recipe box. Asami reached her arm around Korra’s waist and slipped her hand up underneath Korra’s vest. “Can I just hold my hand here?” she asked. Korra nodded. “I can kinda half-remember something about this.”

Her fingers were just below Korra’s navel and she began to apply gentle pressure. Asami couldn’t remember if she was meant to do it two or three finger-widths down from the navel so tried to split the difference at two and a half.

Her chin resting on Korra’s shoulder, Asami listened intently to the ebb and flow of Korra’s breathing. After a few minutes, Asami let her eyes close. It barely registered in Asami’s mind that her metal hand was drawing sprawling patterns across Korra’s shoulder blade and down her arm.

Korra chuckled quietly to herself. “We’d have a hard time explaining this if someone walked in right now,” she whispered.

Asami hummed her agreement.

“How long do I have to hold this?” Korra asked. “My thumbs are getting tired. Your … your hand there is kinda … kinda nice though.”

“Just hold it until it stops hurting, I guess.”

“Okay. I think I’ll let go then.”

“Sure. You want me to …?”

“No … That’s okay. I like you holding me.”

“Dork.”

Korra let her hands fall away. She leaned back against Asami so that her head was resting against Asami’s chest and placed a hand over the one Asami had on her stomach.

“Did the magazine say what blocks the … what did you call it?” Korra asked.

“The chakra?”

“Yeah.”

“Being a huge dork.”

Korra laughed sarcastically. “No, really. What did it say?”

“I think it said it was guilt. Either that or too many carbs. Or not enough carbs?” Korra was quiet for a while and Asami felt her stiffen slightly. After at least ten minutes of internal debate Asami plucked up her courage and spoke. “What do you blame yourself for?” she asked quietly, half-hoping Korra wouldn’t hear her question.

Korra swallowed audibly.

“What do you know about the gate accident?” Korra asked.

Asami knitted her eyebrows together in confusion. What could a disused hyperspace portal exploding years ago have to do with Korra?

“What everyone else knows,” Asami said cautiously. Korra didn’t say anything. Asami guessed she probably wanted Asami to say it, to say the whole thing about exactly what had happened to the gate. Or at least what everyone assumed had happened. “There was a malfunction on a hyperspace gate. One in Earth orbit. The one over the North Pole, right?”

“The South Pole,” Korra said in an emotionless, matter-of-fact voice.

“Oh. Right. The South Pole. All the portals had been abandoned decades ago. They were obsolete after the spirit drive was perfected. Everyone assumed they were inert and no one bothered to check. Then a few years ago, the one over the South Pole exploded. The entire southern hemisphere was in crisis mode for a while, I remember. Thousands died. And it created some kind of, I dunno, a singularity, a tear in the fabric of time and space. That’s when the aliens came through.”

Korra took a deep breath.

“It was my fault. The whole thing,” Korra said. She paused and bit her lip. “Eska’s dad. He wanted to reopen the portals. I never knew why. I didn’t care much either. He had a bounty on his head and that’s all I was worried about. I didn’t think why he wanted it open. I just knew someone was willing to pay a shit ton of money for him to have a nasty accident.”

Korra laughed dryly.

“I had a few run-ins with him before … before the end. He beat the shit out of me more than once. And his ship … it had a stupid name, can’t remember it now … his ship was more powerful than Raava in almost every way. And he had Eska and her brother helping him. So I got sneaky. I stole some old plans for the gate and opened it first. His ship got pulled in and … that was that.”

Asami stroked her fingers through Korra’s hair, listening silently.

“The portal started, I dunno, overheating, I guess. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to stop it from overloading but … Raava lost a lot of paintwork in the explosion. I lost my eye. I don’t remember the spirits … the aliens, I mean … I don’t remember them coming through. Must have been after the gate blew up. Must have been.”

Korra wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.

“If … if I hadn’t been so … so fixated on the bounty … if I’d actually tried to do the right thing … maybe no one would have died. Or maybe not. I’m still not sure what the right thing to do was. Pretty sure it wasn’t _that_ though. Maybe I should have just shot him. Right between the eyes. Gotten it over with.” Korra pointed her forefinger against her forehead as if to demonstrate. She made a gunshot noise with her mouth that echoed around the observation deck. “I told Eska to just deal with it. But it’s not that simple, is it?”

“No. It’s not,” Asami said quietly.

Asami cradled Korra as the minutes crawled by, slow and silent.

Asami wondered whether Korra had fallen asleep, she was so quiet. When the sunlight filled the dusty observation deck again, Korra sighed happily, peacefully.

“Korra?” Asami whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Korra, I …” Asami mumbled, “I think you’re one of the most … you … you’re pretty great.”

Asami rolled her eyes angrily at herself. She’d traded more for cigarettes than she’d managed to express.

“Thanks,” Korra said, sitting up and flashing Asami her crooked grin.

“Do you want something to eat?” Asami asked hurriedly.

Korra’s eyes lit up excitedly. “You’ve got food?!”

Asami fished the orange-half out of her pocket and handed it to Korra. Like a starving man, Korra tore the clingfilm off and stuffed the entire thing, peel and all, into her mouth. She smiled an orange-peel smile at Asami as juice trickled out of the corner of her mouth.

Korra flexed her jaw as she sucked the juice out of the orange. She looked so ridiculous that Asami had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. Korra started laughing and almost choked. When she spat the orange peel out, still snorting with laughter, a stream of saliva ran down her chin.

“Oh, shit!” she laughed. With sticky fingers, Korra tried to mop up the mess but just made it worse.

“You are so unbelievably hot like that,” Asami said in low voice as Korra tried futilely to wipe her mouth on her vest.

Korra stared at Asami, her eyebrows arched and her hand clamped over her mouth, trying to ebb the flow of saliva.

“Oh, no!” Asami groaned, hiding her face behind her hands in embarrassment. “I’ve weirded you out haven’t I?!”

“No no no!” Korra laughed, finally managing to wipe most of the saliva from her mouth. “It’s just …” She had to pause to catch her breath. “… it’s just that you’re into … wow …” Korra began counting on her fingers, a shit-eating grin on her face. “Let’s see … there’s the weird food sex thing with the peanut butter …”

“What?” Asami snapped, her mouth open in disbelief and her cheeks burning with embarrassment. “I … that was totally innocent … I told you, I get a rash with the shaving cream!”

Korra held up another finger. “… Your foot fetish, of course,” Korra said. She held up a third finger as Asami turned purple. “You have a weird fascination with my ear lobe.” Asami crossed her arms and pouted at Korra. “You like biting too.”

“Hey!” Asami said defensively, pointing an accusing finger at Korra. “I only did that because you were so into it!”

Korra smiled to herself. “Yeah,” she said, a faraway look in her eyes. “And you basically gagged me in the library. That’s some pretty kinky shit right there!”

“You were being too noisy!”

“And now! Now we have to add drool to that already substantial list of kinks! Drool, Asami! _Drool!_ ” Korra exclaimed, sneering her nose up in pretend disgust

“STOP KINK-SHAMING ME!” Asami yelled.

“Kink-shaming you?” Korra laughed and squished Asami’s cheeks between her hands. “If anything I’m kink- _enabling_ you,” she said, planting a messy kiss on Asami’s lips.

“W-what about you!” Asami said sulkily, pulling Korra’s hands away from her face. “You’re no saint! You … you … you pull my hair and … and you like it when I bite you and …” Asami paused, desperately trying to think of something else. “OH! When I was covered in oil that time you practically came in your pants just from looking at me!”

“That wasn’t my fault though,” Korra laughed. “You looked super-hot.” Korra nibbled the edge of what was left of the orange’s pulpy flesh. She looked up at Asami, an evil gleam in her eye. “I wonder what else you’re into, you kinky bastard. Riding crops? Choking? Bondage? Nipple cl-”

“Will you stop making fun of me if I give you more food?” Asami interrupted.

“Maaaaaybe.”

Asami clambered to her feet, groaning.

“Ugh, where’d I put my toolbox?” The sun was setting again and Asami had to stumble through the gloom, looking for it. “Ah-hah! Found it.”

Asami opened her toolbox, rifled around inside, and rolled the can of treacle across the floor to Korra who grabbed it and began trying to pry the lid off with her teeth. Asami sighed and passed her one of the spoons she’d swiped from the kitchen. Korra managed to lever the lid off with the spoon. Korra’s eyes almost rolled into the back of head as she ate the first spoonful.

Asami lay down, her head in Korra’s lap. “You can’t eat that whole thing,” Asami laughed.

“Pfft!” Korra snorted, her mouth full of treacle. “Jus’ watch me!”

“You’ll make yourself sick!”

“You’d probably be into that though, wouldn’t you?!”

“No, I would _not_!” Asami huffed. She crossed her arms across her chest and pouted.

“You’ve got something there,” Korra said, pointing at Asami’s cheek.

“What?” Asami asked, rubbing her cheek with her sleeve.

Korra smeared treacle across Asami’s cheek and lips with a sticky finger. “That,” she said as she leant down to kiss Asami’s face clean.

After a while, Korra started humming softly, grinning cheekily, as she licked the last scraps of treacle from the spoon.

“What are you humming?!” Asami snapped.

“Nothing,” Korra said innocently, throwing the empty can aside.

“Korra,” Asami said sternly.

“… she’s a super freak … super freak … she’s super-freaky …” Korra sang quietly, trying and failing to balance the spoon on her nose.

“Korra, you little shit!” Asami pounced on her and they both fell sprawling on the floor.

“… yow …” Korra laughed. “Careful. I’m still tender.”

“Sorry,” Asami said, peppering Korra’s face with kisses. Korra’s lips tasted sickly sweet and the kisses were sticky and messy. Korra’s face was soon red from lipstick and blushing.

“How did you even find this place?” Korra asked, sitting up when Asami’s barrage had subsided.

“Varrick let me see some old blueprints a while ago,” Asami said, flopping down, her head resting in Korra’s lap again. “I think the plumbing in one of the outer levels had broken. I forget. Anyway, I saw this on the blueprints. This heap of rust they call a prison has had so many renovations and repairs over the years that this deck has been forgotten about. It’s been almost completely sealed off from the rest of the prison and I wanted somewhere I could smoke and read without being disturbed.”

“And here I figured you just crawled through sewage pipes for fun,” Korra laughed.

Asami’s pulse quickened as Korra ran gentle (albeit still a little sticky) fingers through her hair. She followed the line of Asami’s jaw with her fingertips and traced the shape of her lips. With a light touch, she ran her finger down the almost healed cut over her left eye.

“Why are you touching my face?” Asami asked, chuckling.

“I can still see where Eska cut your face,” Korra said, retracing over and over the path the knife had taken from above her eyebrow, over her eyelid, down her cheek.

“I think it suits me,” Asami said, smiling sweetly up at Korra and kissing her hand. “Besides, scars are sexy.”

Korra grinned down at her.

“Should we go back up now?” Asami asked, her eyes closed, praying that Korra would say no.

“One more sunrise,” Korra said, caressing Asami’s face. “Then we can go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK AT THIS AMAZING ART THAT THIS FANTASTIC PERSON DID OF ASAMI FROM MY FIC! http://lin-the-bae-fong.tumblr.com/image/118569157818
> 
> Oh, and I'm about halfway through the first chapter of a Mako/Wu story set in this universe so keep an eye out for that!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it has been forever since the last update. This chapter is extra long and extra smutty to make up for that!
> 
> And because I'm a shameless self-promoter, I have to let you know that the first chapter of my Mako/Wu fic has been posted. It's called 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Earth Empire' (yes, another awful sci-fi pop culture reference) and it's set in the same universe as this fic and they will eventually cross over! So go read that! Read this first though! Or not, I mean, I'm not going to tell you what to do!

Korra could feel the blisters forming on her fingers. She gritted her teeth and shoved the plunger into the toilet again. And again. And again.

The smell in the toilets was unbearable, and not the kind of unbearable that stops being noticeable after a while. Korra had been cleaning these toilets for the best part of an hour and the smell was still enough to make her gag.

She had tried stuffing toilet paper up her nostrils but, surprising nobody, that hadn’t worked. The mask she’d made out of sanitary towels and bootlaces had been less than useless, and the three and half bottles of bleach had only made it harder to breathe. At that moment, she was just clenching her jaw and thinking about throttling Opal. That was working a little bit.

Water had stopped cascading over the rim of the toilet about half an hour ago but the tiled floor of the washroom was still an inch underwater. The flood was seeping away at a painstakingly slow pace. The drains were blocked with hair and toilet paper and spirits knew what else.

Korra’s toes were numb but at least her boots and socks were safe and dry by the sinks.

She grumbled under her breath as she worked.

Asami was waiting for her in the old observation deck while she was stuck scrubbing toilets, up to her ankles in toilet-water, and she was very fucking far from happy about it.

Asami had spent the best part of the week in the prison’s hangar bay repairing a pair of damaged supply shuttles. One of the shuttles had been attacked by pirates and another had been caught in a debris storm. Korra wasn’t allowed in the hangar which meant they hadn’t been able to spend much time together recently.

So when Asami had told her that morning to meet her in their hideaway after dinner, Korra’s heart had grown wings. She’d been on her way to their hiding place when Opal had caught her and blackmailed her into cleaning the toilets for her as payback for the tampons she’d leant her.

Korra glared at Opal with an intensity that could have melted steel. Opal was sitting on one of the sinks, her toes dangling a hair’s breadth above the water. She was singing a Ginger song under her breath while she flicked through the huge ornithological encyclopaedia that was open in her lap. Korra found herself longing for the out-of-tune Donna Summer songs that Asami sang in the showers.

Opal must have felt Korra’s gaze because she looked up from her book and grinned at Korra. Her cigarette was unlit and forgotten between her lips.

“What?” she asked innocently, taking the virgin cigarette out of her mouth and twirling it between her fingers.

“I hate you so fucking much,” Korra snarled.

“Why? It’s not _my_ fault that P’li shits like a badger-mole.”

“I should hold your head under in this toilet,” Korra growled, only half-joking.

“’Oh, Opal, thank you so much for these tampons,’” Opal said, imitating Korra in an exaggerated baritone boom of a voice. “‘You’re so kind and beautiful. I owe you one! Anything! You name it!’ You remember saying something like that, Korra?”

“That was over a week ago!” Korra protested.

“So?”

“I’d hoped you’d forgotten,” Korra grumbled. “And I don’t sound like that.”

“My impression of you is fantastic. Flawless. Indistinguishable from the original. Listen.” She held up a finger to Korra and cleared her throat. “‘Oh, Asami, my precious turtle-duck, my rose. I want to make love to your face. I love you so much. Almost as much as I love Opal! She’s so dreamy and sexy and intelligent. I wish that my hair could look as good in a bob as hers d- OW!” Opal rubbed her forehead where the plunger had hit her.

Korra gave Opal the finger. “You’re a menace. It’s a wonder you haven’t been shanked by someone yet.”

Opal laughed and hurled the plunger back at Korra. “Are you kidding? Why would anyone want to stab me? I’m delightful.”

Curled up on the cistern above Korra, Pabu squeaked in agreement.

Korra frowned up at the ferret. “You’re just saying that because she feeds you. Come on down here, you little shit.” Pabu jumped down into Korra’s arms.

“Bite her, Pabu!” Opal hissed, grinning. “She disrespected your mistress. Kill, Pabu! Kill!” Pabu purred and closed his eyes as Korra began scratching behind his ears. ”You’re lucky you’re cute,” she grumbled.

Opal remembered the cigarette she had been fiddling with and took out a yellow plastic lighter from somewhere inside her jumpsuit.

“Can you believe this shit?” Opal grumbled when after six or seven tries the lighter had still failed to work. “I paid Kai over half of my cigarettes and my best smutty romance novels for this piece of shit.”

“Asami uses a battery and gum wrappers.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not all geniuses like your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my …” Korra didn’t finish the sentence.

Opal’s lighter let out a weak feather of flame and she lit her cigarette, shielding it from some imaginary wind behind her hand. She took a drag and sighed. “Not your what? Not your girlfriend?”

Korra shrugged and hugged Pabu a little tighter.

Opal patted the sink next to her. “Come on. Take a break.”

Korra waded over to Opal, water sloshing around her ankles. She walked slowly so that her bare feet wouldn’t slip on the tiles. She forgot to stroke Pabu as she struggled to make herself comfortable on the rim of the sink and Pabu nuzzled her insistently, impatiently.

Scratching behind Pabu’s ears again, Korra looked dejectedly at her toes. They were almost blue from the cold.

Opal held the smouldering cigarette out to Korra, smiling kindly. “Here. Figure I probably owe you at least one,” she said. “After all, I won most of my stash because of you.”

“Thanks,” Korra mumbled. She took the cigarette that had been offered to her and, after Opal had lit a second one from the first’s glowing tip, Korra took a long drag. “Fucking shit!” Korra spluttered as she began coughing violently, her eyes watering.

Opal laughed at her and rubbed her back.

“That’s awful,” Korra gasped, taking a second drag. She coughed again and spat a globule of phlegm into the water swirling around her feet. “Can’t believe I used to smoke like twenty of these a day.” She sighed, looking intently at the eddying smoke. “I probably shouldn’t be having this,” Korra said glumly. “Asami’s trying to give up.”

“How … how are you two doing then?” Opal asked. “And if you shrug again I’m going to take that cigarette back.”

Korra realised too late that she’d shrugged and almost fell off the sink trying to protect her cigarette from Opal.

“Okay, okay … _ow_ … okay! Stop it!” Korra laughed, Opal’s hand in her face and holding the cigarette at arm’s length away from her.

“Are you … _agh_ … gonna tell me … _umph_ … what’s bothering you and … _ungh_ … talk about your feelings?” Opal said, grunting and groaning as she tried to claw the cigarette back.

“Fine!” Korra snapped.

Opal ceased her assault and ran her fingers through her messy hair. Pabu, who had retreated to the safety of a broken hand-drier during the brief scuffle, climbed onto Korra’s shoulder.

“So … what’s wrong?” Opal asked breathlessly, placing a hand over Korra’s. Her hand felt smooth and soft, nothing like Asami’s skilled, calloused fingers.

“I just …” Korra felt stupid. Her cigarette had gotten bent in her attempt to save it from Opal and smouldering tobacco was falling out onto her knee. Korra brushed the flakes off her leg and flicked the cigarette into the water. She watched as it was carried away by the current until it got stuck in a clump of sodden toilet paper near the showers. “This is stupid,” she groaned.

Opal glared stormily at her but squeezed her hand comfortingly. “Talking about your feelings isn’t stupid. No, you wanna know what’s stupid? Letting your not-girlfriend gag you and eat you out in the library with no regard for innocent passers-by. _That’s_ stupid!”

Korra smiled sheepishly and felt herself blush. “Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, you’d better be,” Opal said huffily, offering Korra a second cigarette. “Pabu and I still get nightmares about that. I have to admit … it did make the next few days’ showers a tad more interesting.” She chuckled to herself and they smoked in silence. “So what’s going on with you two?” she asked after a while.

“I dunno, It’s just … everything’s going so well and …”

“Oh, poor you!” Opal said sarcastically.

Korra ignored her. “We’re really starting to open up to each other and the sex is, well, fantastic and …” Korra glanced at Opal whose toffee skin was turning purple as she struggled not to laugh. Korra thumped her in the ribs, half-heartedly.

“I’m so sorry,” Opal whispered, swallowing her laughter. “Carry on.”

“I just don’t know what we … _are_. Y’know?”

“Nope.”

Korra groaned and leant back against the finger-stained mirror. “I don’t know what we are to each other. Are we girlfriends? Fuck-buddies? Are we only doing this because we’re cellmates and craving some kind of … of … I dunno … human contact? We always seem to be able to dodge the subject whenever it comes up.”

“Well,” Opal said sympathetically, “do you want to be her girlfriend?”

Korra scoffed and rolled her eyes but Opal was clearly unconvinced.

“Yes,” Korra said quietly. “I … I want to be her girlfriend. But … I don’t know if she wants anything like that and … and even if she did … I don’t think we could have anything _real_ in here” Korra closed her eyes, trying to stop the tears. “She deserves so much better and … even if we weren’t stuck in here, I can’t give her anything that she deserves.”

Opal pulled Korra into a tight hug. She made soft, slightly ridiculous, crooning noises while she stroked Korra’s hair and Pabu’s rough tongue licked the tears from her cheeks.

“She’s my … _everything_ ,” Korra admitted, as much to herself as to Opal. “And … and I don’t know if she feels the same way.”

“Are you kidding?” Opal grabbed Korra by the shoulders and shook her. “She’s crazy about you!”

Korra wiped her eyes hoping Opal wouldn’t notice. “Really?”

“YES!” Opal yelled, laughing.

“How … please stop shaking me … how can you tell?”

“Just the way she looks at you as though you’re some piece of art or something. And how she can never stop touching you! It’s disgusting! Seriously, how can you be so oblivious?! Of course she’s crazy about you, you stupid fucking dork!”

Korra chewed her lip uncertainly. “You’re sure?”

“Just ask her to be your girlfriend!” Opal groaned, looking to the heavens in weary desperation.

“What? Just say: ‘Asami, we’ve been screwing for a while now so would you like to be my girlfriend?’” Korra’s bitter laugh caught in her throat. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll totally win her over and not sound stupid at all.”

“If you don’t tell her then I will,” Opal said sternly. “And the fact that we’re stuck in this shit hole shouldn’t stop you. The whole world’s a prison!”

“That was … depressing but oddly encouraging.”

“You’re welcome. And the next time I see you, I expect to see you and Asami as an _official_ couple with that super-happy, kinda out of it, just-been-fucked look on your faces.”

“Your interest in our sex life is slightly worrying, you know that right?”

“I have a problem. I’m the first to admit this. My love life is clinically dead and I need something to think about on lonely nights.”

Korra draped an arm over Opal’s shoulder. “Oh, come on. I thought you and Bolin were soul mates.”

“Bolin and I have actually been doing really well recently. We had a whole five minute conversation yesterday.”

“Really? That’s great!”

“Well … four minutes. And two of them were awkward silence. He gave me some gum though! That’s gotta count for something right?”

“Yeeeeah,” Korra said, struggling to keep a straight face. “I mean … yeah, wow … four minutes?!” Korra whistled in feigned awe. “That’s like … a two hundred percent improvement over last time.”

“I’m worried we’re taking things too quickly,” Opal said, suppressing laughter.

Korra laughed and tapped the pillar of ash from her cigarette into the sink. “You really think Asami feels the same way?” she asked quietly.

“Yes! Now get back to work!” Opal laughed, pointing commandingly to the toilet with the glowing end of her cigarette.

Korra ground her cigarette out in the sink, groaned, and set Pabu down in Opal’s lap. “It’s no use! That toilet is un-unblockable.” Korra was certain that someone had flushed a fistful of tampons down the toilet again.

“Use your hand,” Opal suggested, miming the technique Korra should use. “Just … get it right in there.”

Korra pulled a face and pushed herself off the sinks. “Don’t you have any gloves?”

“Pabu ate them.”

Korra kicked water at Opal and sloshed over to the toilet. She grit her teeth and picked up the plunger, brandishing it like a weapon. A bitter taste of bile rose in the back of mouth as she stared down at the blocked toilet.

“Screw this,” she said under her breath. Asami was waiting for her.

She went back to the sinks, dried her feet with the coarse paper towels that had replaced the hand-dryer, pulled on her socks and boots, and dropped the plunger into a sink. After giving Pabu a final tickle and grabbing Asami’s toolbox, Korra squelched out of the bathroom.

“I am never ever borrowing tampons from you ever again, Opal,” she said as she left. “Ever!”

“Wait, where are you going?” Opal asked, pushing herself off the sinks and splashing after Korra.

Korra froze. “I’m … er … I’ve gotta go to the bathroom.”

“But … you’re in the bathroom,” Opal pointed out, perplexed.

Korra mumbled something about having a shy bladder and made a break for it, running through the shallow water and down the corridor, leaving a trail of wet boot-prints as she went.

She skidded to a halt outside the laundry. Kya was waiting for her. She was lounging in the doorway, a cigarette between her fingers and blowing smoke rings lazily into the air.

“Hey … Sorry … Ope … Opal caught me,” Korra panted, putting Asami’s toolbox down and looking nervously over her shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kya said, reaching into the depths of her jumpsuit. She handed Korra a plastic water bottle, half filled with a thick, green-yellow liquid.

“How much did we agree on?” Korra asked, putting the bottle in Asami’s toolbox and fumbling in her pockets.

“Seven, I think,” Kya said with a cheeky grin.

“Pretty sure it was four,” Korra said, equally cheeky.

“Six.”

“Five.”

“Five’ll be fine, darling.”

Korra handed her the cigarettes. She’d gotten them the day before in a card game. She’d come away from that game with the five packets of cigarettes plus grazed knuckles and a swollen, purple bruise under her eye. The player who’d accused her of cheating had ended up with worse than just a black eye.

“You know, most people come to me for hooch. This request was a little … unusual,” Kya said as she checked to make sure the packets were all full. Reassured that she hadn’t been swindled, she gave Korra a crooked, knowing smile. “Have fun,” she said cheekily.

Her cheeks burning, Korra picked up the toolbox and fled down the corridor.

For days after Asami had first shown her the abandoned observation deck, Korra had spent every spare moment memorising the route there. “Left at the bathroom … past the mystery stain in Block D … down three levels … find the store room … along the pipe until you find the loose section …” She would repeat this mantra silently over and over to herself every night until she drifted off to sleep in Asami’s arms.

None of the guards seemed to care about Korra wondering the corridors. She assumed it was because she was carrying Asami’s toolbox and had been helping her with repairs around the prison for a while now. Maybe the guards just didn’t care. She liked to think that it was because she intimidated them. Whatever the reason, Korra made it to the dark, dusty store room without being stopped once.

She was relieved to see that the old sewage pipe’s access hatch was open. That meant Asami was still down in the observation deck and hadn’t gotten tired of waiting for her. Korra clambered into the pipe and pulled the toolbox in after her.

The smell of stale sewage was like roses to Korra after an hour in that bathroom.

The loose section of the pipe was hanging open and Korra jumped out of the pipe, gripping the toolbox to her chest protectively.

Asami had stolen a can of luminous yellow spray paint from Varrick yesterday. Korra had wondered what she was going to do with it. Now she knew.

The can had been nearly empty but there had evidently been just about enough left for Asami to scrawl ‘ASAMI’S SEX DUNGEON’ over the broken airlock that led down to the observation deck. Korra rolled her eyes and smiled to herself.

“Shouldn’t there be a hyphen in sex-dungeon?” Korra shouted as she climbed down the spiral staircase. There was no answer. “Asami?”

A distant sound of grunting echoed up the metal staircase, getting gradually louder and louder with every step that Korra took. Panic gripped Korra and she half fell, half ran down the stairs. She clenched her fists tightly.

She took a deep sigh of relief when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey, Korra,” Asami said breathlessly. She was hanging from the ceiling of the observation deck, gripping a pipe with her left hand. A delicious sheen of sweat covered her flushed skin as she pulled herself up so that her chin touched the pipe, the muscles in her arm and shoulder rippling under her skin. A few strands of hair had escaped from Asami’s bun and were plastered to her damp forehead.

“Hey,” Korra said, her gaze roaming Asami’s body hungrily as she set the toolbox down on the crate that she guessed Asami had used to reach the pipe. “I wondered what that noise was.”

“Just … working-out … a bit,” she grunted, her teeth clenched and breathing heavily.

Asami wasn’t wearing her cybernetic arm. In the sunlight, the burns that scarred Asami’s shoulder, crept up her neck, spread down her back, and that covered what little remained of her right arm were even deeper, angrier shades of red and pink and scarlet than usual.

The metal arm was lying abandoned and lifeless near one of the windows on a pile of blankets that Asami and Korra and smuggled out of the laundry.

“What happened to your arm?” Korra asked, picking it up gently, looking for any sign of damage. “Did it break? Are you okay?”

“It’s fine. It’s just too damn heavy to do this,” Asami said, still pulling herself up, over and over. Korra wondered if that was the whole truth but she didn’t press the matter. She put the arm back down carefully.

“I didn’t think you could get it off on your own,” Korra said, perplexed.

“Huh?”

“That day I helped you fix your arm after Eska’s knife got st-“

“The day you kissed me?” Asami interrupted, pausing her pull-ups and her sweat drenched face twisting into a grin.

Korra felt her cheeks reddening at the memory of that first kiss. “… Yes … the … the day I kissed you … you needed my help to take it off.”

“It’s not exactly easy to get off but I may have _slightly_ exaggerated how hard it is. What? It was hard to see in the dark and my hands were shaking from the adrenaline rush and I’d spent the whole day trying to think of a reason to get close to you.”

“Loser,” Korra snorted derisively, but she was aware of just how red her cheeks must have been. “You done working-out now?” Korra asked. Asami’s vest was beginning to cling to her sweat soaked skin so Korra prayed the answer would be no.

“I can stop if you want,” Asami said breathlessly.

“You keep going. I’ll just be over here,” Korra mumbled, “watching you … touching myself.”

Asami laughed so hard she snorted. She was still laughing when she suddenly lost her grip on the pipe and fell in a heap on the floor. She hit the crate on the way down and sent her toolbox spinning through the air to land with a crash next to her.

She was still laughing when Korra held a hand out to help her up. She realised she’d offered her right hand and held out her left instead. Asami sat up and grabbed her outstretched hand. Korra yelped in surprise as she was pulled down into Asami’s lap.

After her face had been peppered with saccharine-sweet kisses, Asami’s thumb brushed gently over the bruise under Korra’s eye. “I wish you’d tell me how you got this,” she said, frowning.

“Don’t worry about it,” Korra whispered. She leant forwards and stole a delicate kiss from Asami’s lips, her dry lips sticking to Asami’s for a second.

“Have you been smoking?!” Asami gasped, her eyes lighting up hungrily. Before Korra could answer, Asami had grabbed her vest and pulled her into a deep open-mouthed kiss. She moaned throatily as her tongue did unspeakable things in Korra’s mouth. “Spirits, you taste good,” Asami said, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand when she finally let Korra go.

“That wasn’t weird and invasive at all,” Korra spluttered, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

“Kiss me again! Wait, let me smell you first! Breathe in my mouth!”

“Please start smoking again! You’re scary when you’re not smoking.”

“I have more stamina now,” Asami said, a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “And everything tastes so much better.”

“I bet that makes dinner less enjoyable,” Korra laughed.

“True. But it makes other things more enjoyable.” Asami chuckled. “I mean your vagina,” she whispered.

Korra rolled her eyes and shook her head, fighting a smile. “How’re the repairs on the shuttles going?” she asked, undoing Asami’s bun and running her fingers through her hair.

“Pretty well,” Asami said, her hand on Korra’s arm and her fingers caressing barely noticeable circles against Korra’s skin. “I had a bit of phantom pain earlier. Don’t worry, it wasn’t that bad. I managed to power through it. I only wasted like half an hour. The repairs should be done in a few days. I’ve been pestering them to let you help me. I think I’m gradually wearing them down.”

“Good. I’ve … I’ve missed having you around so much!”

“Me too,” Asami said, her voice warm and soft.

Korra smiled and her fingers left Asami’s hair and wandered down to her shoulders. Her smile turned to a frown as her hand glided across Asami’s scarred right shoulder.

“Are you going to put your arm back on?” Korra asked as her fingers reached the end of what had once been Asami’s right arm.

“I wasn’t …” Asami bit her lip and for a moment Korra thought she was about to cry. “Do you want me to? I mean, I get it if you don’t want to see this.”

Korra planted a row of kisses along Asami’s shoulder. “It doesn’t bother me in the slightest,” she said with a genuine sincerity that she hoped Asami would believe.

Asami smiled but Korra could still detect a hint of sadness in her eyes. “I think I’ll leave it off … at least for now. You really don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Korra said, meaning it with all her heart. “What do you want to do?”

“Have you ever played Pai Sho?” Asami asked.

“Once or twice. Why?”

“I was thinking we could play Strip Pai Sho,” Asami said, grinning, “but we don’t have a board or pieces or anything.”

“Plus we only have like three pieces of clothing,” Korra laughed. “Seven if we count boots and actually manage to get our hands on some socks. It wouldn’t be very long before we were completely naked.”

“Well, before _you_ were completely naked,” Asami said, grinning.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Korra asked indignantly.

“Korra, darling,” Asami said, stroking Korra’s cheek with her thumb, “there is no way in hell you are better at Pai Sho than I am!”

“Is that so?” Korra growled, kissing Asami and biting her lip gently, playfully. “We’ll see about that.”

“Yes, yes we will!” Asami laughed. “In fact, I will bet you anything you like that you’ll be stark naked before I’ve lost my first piece of clothing!”

“Okay, you’re on,” Korra said. “But then it’s not all that hard for you to get me out of my clothes.”

“No,” Asami agreed, trailing kisses down Korra’s neck. “It isn’t hard at all.”

Korra tilted her head back to expose more of her neck. Her mouth fell open in a silent gasp as Asami’s lips and teeth left their mark on her throat. With her hand on the base of Korra’s spine, Asami gently eased Korra down onto the cold floor.

Korra blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and lifted her hips so that Asami could get her hand out from under her. She was lying on a screwdriver (or something equally pointy) that had fallen out of the toolbox when Asami had tumbled onto the floor. She wriggled herself into a more comfortable position that was out of reach of the screwdriver and shut her eyes.

Her eyes sealed tightly, Korra waited. She knew the routine by now. Asami liked to make her wait. It was a game to her, a game neither one them was entirely aware they were playing. It was a game with unspoken rules and with only one winner.

And that winner was never Korra.

Korra’s fists clenched and unclenched, her arms above her head and the pressure inside her rising. Her hips lifted up off the floor slightly and she held her lip in her teeth to stop herself from saying anything. She waited for what felt like hours but was probably not more than a few minutes. Maybe just a few seconds.

“Asami,” Korra whispered at last. And with that word, so quiet it was barely more than a breath, Korra had conceded.

For a second Korra waited in exquisite suspense, her pulse pounding in her ears. The first thing Korra felt was the tickle of loose hair on her skin. Then the heat of breath on her cheek and the soft touch of a thumb tracing the outline of her mouth. Then lips met her flesh and started their journey down from her eyelids to her neck.

Asami followed the ridge of Korra’s collar bone to the base of her throat with her fingertips and then with her lips. She tugged at the collar of Korra’s vest and kissed a little way down her sternum. Korra’s skin prickled as the bottom of her vest was lifted and a hand ran up her stomach. She held her breath, waiting eagerly for Asami to expose more and more of her skin, expecting her vest to be torn off at any moment.

Instead, Korra heard Asami growl in frustration.

Korra opened her eyes as Asami was struggling to get her vest off. The last few rays of sunlight were seeping through the tinted windows and Asami’s eyes burnt with green fire. Korra wondered whether it was possible to fall in love with the colour of someone’s eyes.

“Okay,” Asami said, giving up on tugging at Korra’s vest and sitting back on her heels, “so it turns out it’s harder than I thought to get you out of your clothes.” She rubbed her stump and chewed her lip. Her eyes were a cold, ethereal grey-green now as starlight began to replace the fading sunlight.

Korra sat up, her blood still humming with electricity and her skin still craving Asami’s touch. She pushed the hair out of her eyes. The last vestiges of sunlight had vanished behind the prison and Korra was struggling to read Asami’s expression through the gloom.

Korra reached out a hand to Asami. Her hand hovered, shaking, over Asami’s shoulder but something made her pull her hand away. She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. The fire that had been coursing through her veins had faded and all that was left was an empty gnawing in the pit of her stomach and a lump in her throat.

Somewhere deep down inside her, part of Korra was afraid. She was afraid that Asami didn’t feel the way she felt. She was afraid that she wasn’t good enough for Asami and she was afraid of having to spend the rest of her life alone. None of this worried Korra. Korra was used to these fears. They kept her awake almost every night while Asami slept peacefully in her arms.

What really worried Korra was that, for half a heartbeat, a small part of herself had been afraid to touch Asami. This small piece of herself was afraid that Asami would break like fragile china if she so much as touched her, if she even looked at her for too long.

She watched as the starlight danced in Asami’s hair and turned her sweat to liquid silver. Korra closed her eyes and released the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

Korra hated herself for being afraid and for thinking that Asami was fragile. She wasn’t delicate or untouchable. She was brave and strong, a survivor and a fighter. She was passionate and kind and intelligent. She was short-tempered and deeply scarred – emotionally as well as physically – and she sang Donna Summer songs in the shower, off-key and obnoxiously loud. She was perfect and flawed all at once. She was Asami. Her friend. Her … everything. Flesh and blood not gossamer and porcelain.

Korra climbed to her feet and knelt down in front of Asami.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around Asami and cradled her head against her chest, lacing her fingers through Asami’s hair.

“Sorry for what,” Asami asked. Korra wasn’t sure if Asami’s voice was heavy with unshed tears or if it was just muffled by the tight embrace.

‘Sorry for being afraid,’ Korra thought as she pulled Asami closer. ‘I’m sorry for thinking you were fragile. Sorry for not being better than I am. Sorry for not deserving you. Sorry that sometimes I’m afraid to let myself love you.’

“Nothing,” Korra whispered as Asami melted into the embrace.

Korra closed her eyes and listened to the sound of Asami breathing and savoured her smell and her warmth. Something about that moment felt so … so _real_ … as if everything before that had been a monochromatic nightmare.

“Hey, what’s that?” Asami asked, pointing towards the overturned toolbox behind Korra.

Korra let go of Asami though she kept a hand on her shoulder, reluctant to stop touching her. “What’s what?” Korra asked.

“This,” Asami said, reaching towards the mess of tools and crap that had split out of the toolbox.

Korra gulped as Asami picked up a plastic water bottle. “What?! That? That’s nothing! It’s … it’s … I don’t know what that is it’s not mine I don’t know how it got there _and don’t open it_!”

Holding it between her knees, Asami opened the bottle and sniffed at the viscous green-gold liquid inside. “Smells like … lavender?”

Korra shuffled nervously. “I … I asked Kya for some … y’know … oil. Massage oil.”

“Korra!” Asami gasped, grinning.

“It was supposed to be a surprise!” Korra said, avoiding Asami’s eyes. “I wanted to do something … special for you. Kya said that … umm, olive oil is good for stress and muscle pain and all kinds of stuff. And she put lavender oil in too. She said it helps reduce scar tissue and burns and I thought … I mean, I don’t think there’s anything wrong …. I just … and …”

Asami pulled Korra forwards and planted a gentle kiss on her cheek. “I know, Korra. It’s very sweet of you. Where did Kya get lavender oil?”

Korra shrugged. “Do … do you wanna give it a go?” Korra asked hopefully, looking at Asami through her eyelashes sheepishly.

Asami jumped to her feet and kicked off her boots. She threw the bottle to Korra and began pulling at the knotted sleeves of her jumpsuit that she’d tied around her waist. “Fuck yes!”

Korra undid the knot for her. She pulled off Asami’s jumpsuit with a ravenous zeal and picked her up. Asami wrapped her legs around Korra’s waist and draped her arm around Korra’s neck. Asami peppered Korra with kisses as she carried her over to the pile of blankets near the windows. Korra kicked Asami’s cybernetic arm aside and laid her down gently so that her head was resting on the blankets.

“Floor’s cold,” Asami said, wriggling a little.

“Sorry, should I put a blanket down or something?” Korra asked

“No, no, it’s okay. Took me by surprise a little but it’s … actually kinda nice. My skin feels all … goosebumpy.”

Asami made herself more comfortable while Korra unscrewed the bottle. She set it down at her feet and rubbed her hands together vigorously.

“What are you doing?” Asami asked.

“Warming my hands up,” Korra said as she trickled a small amount of the oil into her cupped hand. She looked down at the oil in her palm critically, chewed her lip, and poured a little more out.

“Do you want me on my stomach or …?” Asami asked.

“No … umm, I think you’re okay like that for now,” Korra said. “I was gonna start with your feet. I know you like that.”

“I swear,” Asami said under her breath, “if the words ‘foot’ and ‘fetish’ cross your lips …”

Korra laughed and rubbed her hands together. Oil dripped through her fingers and down her arms. Huge drops of it landed on her jumpsuit, staining the dirty fabric a dark orange. “Used too much,” she muttered. She looked around at the dark observation deck. It was certainly lacking a certain ambience. “Should really have some candles or something too.”

“I could probably make some candles or lamps or something actually.” Asami chewed her thumbnail thoughtfully. “I could get some jam jars … oil from an acetylene torch maybe … shoelaces?”

“Shush!” Korra hissed. “The massagee doesn’t speak.”

“Massagee?”

“Shush.”

Asami mimed zipping her lips and stuck out a foot, wiggling her toes at Korra impatiently.

Korra took Asami’s foot in her oil-slick hands and Asami shuddered.

“Cold hands,” Asami giggled.

Korra lifted Asami’s foot to her lips and kissed her toes. “Sorry.”

She worked the oil into Asami’s flesh, from the sole of her foot, up her leg to her knee. Korra spread the oil until her hands glided over her skin as easily as if on ice. This ice though was warm to the touch and soft and salty like caramel. She wrapped her hands around Asami’s foot and pressed her thumbs into the tough skin of the sole. Asami let out a deep, rattling sigh and her eyes fluttered closed as Korra applied pressure to the arch of her foot. Asami’s hand glided a few inches down her stomach and she curled her toes as Korra worked. The earthily sweet smell of olives and lavender and sweat filled the air.

Korra massaged Asami’s heel and ankle before moving onto her toes. She gave each toe a gentle pull, one after the other as Asami stifled a gasp. Threading her fingers between her toes, Korra looked up at Asami. Korra coughed loudly and Asami opened an eye.

“Y’know,” Korra said as she replenished the oil on her hands and moved on to the next foot, “patience is a virtue.”

Asami grumbled under her breath as she reluctantly drew her hand out of her underwear.

Once Korra had finished massaging Asami’s feet and had begun working long kneading strokes up Asami’s calves, Asami’s breathing had become ragged and heavy.

“Are you okay?” Korra asked as she reached Asami’s thighs.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Asami hummed.

Korra grinned to herself and spread Asami’s legs slightly. Asami made a high-pitched noise in her throat that she later denied making.

Korra made sure that, while she kneaded Asami’s thighs, her fingers ‘accidentally’ brushed against the crotch of Asami’s underwear. Asami almost whimpered but resisted.

Korra traced the hem of Asami’s underwear with her finger while Asami rubbed her thighs together. Korra kissed her lightly on the lips as she pulled Asami’s vest up, exposing her goose-bumped skin. She teased and tickled Asami’s navel with her lips and her tongue.

When she’d removed Asami’s vest, Korra leant forwards so that her lips brushed Asami’s ear.

“Roll over,” she whispered.

Asami did as she was told, moving the pile of blankets so that it was under her breastbone and using her arm as a pillow. Her loose hair spilt across her back and shoulders.

Korra brushed Asami’s hair aside and dribbled more of the oil out of the bottle. She spread it across Asami’s back, working it into her flesh with soft circular motions. Asami’s oil-glossy skin was soon gleaming like burnished metal in the starlight. Only the scar tissue that spread like a red lotus from her right shoulder and across her back distorted the illusion that her entire body may have been crafted from some precious metal.

Korra straddled Asami. Before letting her hands glide over Asami’s skin, she took a moment to drink in the curves and contours of Asami’s back, every muscle highlighted in the aurous shine of oil and starlight. She ran her hands up Asami’s back towards her shoulders, to her sides, and back down to the base of her spine.

Korra repeated the sweeping motion of her hands up and down Asami’s back slowly, relishing the contact and the warmth of Asami’s skin like living, breathing silk beneath her hands. Asami hummed her approval when, after a while, Korra changed technique, switching to a gentle kneading of the muscles either side of her spine.

She worked her way slowly up Asami’s back to her shoulders. Korra had never given a massage before in her life. She tried desperately to remember the way Asami had massaged her shoulders all that time ago. It couldn’t have been more than two weeks ago, surely? Time was an elusive and mysterious thing in prison, especially when that prison was in space and orbiting a backwater planet like Si Wong.

Korra chewed her thumbnail uncertainly. It tasted like olives and her stomach rumbled.

“Can you sit up?” Korra asked. Asami turned her head slightly and glanced up at her questioningly. “No, wait, never mind. You’re fine like that.”

Asami smiled, almost sleepily, and closed her eyes. Korra leant forwards and planted a kiss on Asami’s cheek. Her lips blazed a trail from her cheek down her neck and along her shoulder while her fingers danced along Asami’s ribs.

Forgetting the oil covering her hands, Korra brushed the hair out of eyes only to have it stick to her forehead. She dragged her forearm across her brow but that only made it worse. Asami wriggled her hips under Korra, worried that she’d been forgotten about. Korra apologised quietly and added more of the oil to her hands. She glanced worriedly at the bottle as she began applying the oil to Asami’s shoulder. She wasn’t sure there would be enough to finish the massage.

Korra had decided (not entirely consciously) to start with Asami’s left shoulder. Despite Asami’s apparent enthusiasm, Korra was still a little concerned about massaging her scarred right shoulder. She didn’t find the burns repulsive, if anything, it was quite the opposite. Korra was, however, worried that Asami had only agreed to this to please her. The last thing Korra wanted was to hurt Asami or make her do something she wasn’t comfortable with.

Korra pressed her thumbs gently into Asami’s left shoulder, pinching with her fingers.

“Mmm … harder …” Asami mumbled.

Korra pressed harder and felt Asami’s moan vibrate through her body. Smiling to herself, Korra took her hands away and decorated Asami’s skin with kisses, from her shoulder blade up to her jaw.

Her hands eventually floated across to Asami’s right shoulder. “You sure about this?” Korra asked.

“Yeah,” Asami murmured.

“I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

Korra hesitated a moment before adding a tiny splash of oil to her hands. She spread it over Asami’s scarred back and shoulder with a cautious, feather-light touch, rubbing small circles into the flame-tarnished skin.

“Is … is that okay?” Korra asked anxiously.

“Mmm … yeah, tha’s nice,” Asami said, her voice a soft rumble.

Korra breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

Reassured that she wasn’t hurting Asami, Korra applied a little more pressure.

She could feel deep knots of scar tissue that laced the burn scars like veins of gold in quartz. A lump rose into Korra’s throat as she tried and failed to count the number of scars that wound their way through the burns. She traced one such pale scar with a fingertip across Asami’s shoulder blade. She assumed that these scars were from shards of metal or bone or maybe both that had torn through Asami’s flesh when her space craft had crashed during Kuvira’s attack on the Republic. The same attack that taken Asami’s father from her.

Korra swallowed audibly and rolled Asami over. Asami raised her eyebrows questioningly and Korra caught her mouth a deep, messy kiss. When Korra reluctantly pulled away, a spider-web thread of saliva stretched between their lips for a second before snapping.

“What was that for?” Asami asked, pushing herself up onto her elbow and brushing her lips fleetingly against Korra’s, almost missing them in the starlit twilight.

“I’m so lucky to have you in my life,” Korra said, burying her face in the curve of Asami’s neck and grasping her thighs. She hoisted Asami up in her arms and carried her over to the crates that Asami’s plants sat on. Her hands and Asami’s thighs were still saturated with oil and Korra almost dropped Asami after a few steps. She carefully put Asami down so that she could lean back against the crates and went back to retrieve the blankets and the bottle.

Now sitting comfortably on a moth-holed blanket, Asami spread her legs out in front of her, slick and lustrous. Korra’s lips and fingers climbed higher and higher up her legs until she reached her stomach. She straddled Asami and ran her fingers through her night-black hair, stroking the defiant curls out of her face and behind her ears while Asami’s fingertips stroked soft circles into Korra’s thigh.

Korra poured what was left of the oil over Asami’s bare chest.

Asami’s cheeks flushed red and she laughed. “I’m definitely going to need a shower after this.”

Korra tried to stop her hands from shaking as she spread the oil over Asami’s breasts, down her torso, and over the soft folds of her stomach. Korra placed her right hand on Asami’s rising and falling chest. She could feel Asami’s racing heartbeat beneath her palm.

She smiled at Asami, cupping her cheek with her other hand and accidently smearing oil over her face in the process. “I thought massages were supposed to be relaxing,” Korra laughed. “Your heart feels like it’s about to explode out of your chest.”

Asami never got a chance to answer, her voice turning into a stifled gasp as Korra moved her hand down to her breast. She threaded her fingers through Asami’s hair and kissed under her jaw as she circled her nipple with her thumb. When she pinched, Korra heard Asami suck air in through her teeth.

She was about to ask if she’d hurt her when she realised that Asami had managed to slip her hand down into her underwear without Korra noticing.

Korra tutted and pulled the hand out of Asami’s underwear, a gentle yet firm grip on her wrist.

“I thought I told you to be patient,” Korra said, still holding her wrist and trying her best to sound scolding. She knew that she just sounded more ridiculous than reprimanding but at least Asami’s disappointed pout had twisted into a huge grin. “You’re always making me wait,” Korra grumbled under her breath. “But _nooo_ , you can’t fucking restrain yourself, can you?”

Korra lifted Asami’s hand up to her mouth. She kissed Asami’s palm and wrist and, turning her hand over, brushed light kisses over her fingertips and stroked her palm with her thumb. Korra closed her eyes as she lavished Asami’s fingers with kisses, listening to Asami’s breathing and lost in the taste of Asami’s fingers. She barely even noticed when Asami’s forefinger slipped into her mouth. Her tongue flickered against Asami’s fingertip and stroked along its length.

Korra opened her eyes, grunting in confusion when Asami pulled her finger out. Asami laughed, her eyes alight with green fire. The sunlight had begun to flood the observation bay again. Asami’s body now looked like it had been hammered out of gleaming, fire-tamed bronze. Korra guided Asami’s hand back to her mouth, half-expecting her fingers to taste cold and metallic. She sucked gently on each of Asami’s fingers one after the after before finally focusing her attention on Asami’s fore- and middle-fingers. Korra looked up at Asami when she felt saliva running in rivulet’s down Asami’s hand and over the fingers she had wrapped around Asami’s wrist.

Korra took Asami’s fingers out of her mouth slowly, teasingly, so that a strand of saliva ran down her chin. Asami clamped her teeth down on her bottom lip. The almost desperate look in Asami’s eyes made Korra smile. Gripping Asami’s wrist gently, she pinned her arm to the side of the box she was leaning against. Korra leant forwards, her bottom lip brushing over Asami’s upper lip.

Still holding Asami’s wrist above her head and against the box, Korra tapped Asami’s wrist with her forefinger. “Is this okay?”

Asami nodded, her eyes blazing hungrily and her lip turning white between her teeth.

“Okay, just … let me know if you want me to let go,” Korra whispered, her lips trailing a path down Asami’s neck and her free hand dancing across Asami’s oil-polished skin, up her ribs and following the curve of a breast.

“Uh-huh,” Asami murmured.

“Should we have a safe word?” Korra asked, her mouth never leaving Asami’s flesh. “We should have a safe word. Why don’t why already have a safe word?”

“We … should may … maybe have a … safe word,” Asami gasped. Korra’s hand was gliding closer and closer to her underwear and it was getting hard for Asami to summon the focus needed to form coherent sentences.

“What … about …” Korra said, planting a kiss on Asami’s lips between each word and moving so that she was straddling one of Asami’s thighs, “‘Avatar’?”

Asami nodded as Korra’s fingers danced over her hips. “Avatar,” she whispered, testing the sound of the word. She nodded again and Korra gave her a quick kiss before slipping her hand into Asami’s underwear, running her fingernails through the tangle of dark, wiry hair.

Asami’s lips parted in a silent gasp as Korra’s fingers traced the shape of her vulva and flitted over her clitoris teasingly. Slowly inserting her forefinger into the warm and welcoming wetness, Korra smiled as Asami whispered her name.

Grinning crookedly but much to Asami’s disappointment, Korra pulled her finger out. Korra sucked the familiar, intoxicating taste of Asami off her finger as Asami watched, hungrily. She pressed her lips against Asami’s, slid her hand back down Asami’s underwear, and worked her finger back inside her. This time she kept it there, adding another finger before setting a slow pace that she knew Asami liked.

Asami’s hips rose off the floor and her back arched. Her head fell back, exposing her throat. Asami had such a beautiful throat, Korra thought. Speeding up the rhythm of her fingers, Korra ran her lips up Asami’s throat, searching for her pulse with her mouth. She felt Asami’s heart pounding in her neck and her quiet gasps reverberating up her neck.

“Asami …” Korra murmured against Asami’s flesh. Asami closed her eyes and Korra felt a hum spread through her chest. “You … taste … so … good.” Korra cringed to herself.

“Don’t … don’t stop. Keep talking,” Asami whispered. “Keep talking to me.”

“You’re so beautiful … and … you’re … my …”

“ _Ah!_ Yes?”

“You’re … you’re … my … every … thing,” Korra whispered, her lips caressing Asami’s throat. “You’re … mine … and … I …”

Without warning, the withered spider plant fell from the box that Korra had Asami pinned against. The pot smashed next to Asami, dry compost spilling across the floor.

“Shit,” Korra hissed. “Sorry, I’ll cl-“

“ _Don’t stop!_ ” Asami gasped, desperately.

Korra did as she was told, tightening her grip on Asami’s wrist and changing the tempo of her fingers again.

Korra’s wrist was beginning to get stiff when Asami, beads of sweat forming on her skin, gasped her name. “I’m … I’m gonna …” she gulped.

Without slowing the fingers inside Asami, Korra let go of her wrist. Korra put her free hand between Asami’s shoulder blades and pulled her body closer, smothering her neck in kisses. Asami wound her fingers tightly into Korra’s hair as she rode out her climax.

Asami slumped back against the crate, upsetting the small bonsai tree which joined the spider plant on the floor. Korra wiped her fingers on her vest and stroked the hair out of Asami’s face. She gave Asami a few moments to catch her breath before pulling Asami’s underwear off and lying down between her outstretched legs.

Korra kissed the insides of Asami’s thighs. Her lips brushed over the sweet wetness between Asami’s legs and she felt a shiver run through her body. Korra’s tongue flitted over Asami’s clitoris as Asami ran her fingers through Korra’s hair. A hand on Asami’s stomach to stop her hips from rising off the floor and another hand gripping Asami’s thigh, Korra set to work with her mouth.

Still sensitive so soon after the last orgasm, it wasn’t long before Asami came again. This time, Korra didn’t give her any time to recover, barely pausing the strokes of her tongue. Korra found herself humming tunelessly as saliva ran down her chin. Korra glanced up at Asami, grinning crookedly when she realised it was one of the Donna Summer songs that Asami sang in the showers. Asami bit down on her lip and gripped Korra’s hair with white knuckles.

Korra guessed that it was sometime between the third and fourth orgasm (though by then they had all begun to merge into one) when she rolled over onto her back, pulling Asami’s hips with her so that Asami was on her knees over Korra. Asami let go of Korra’s hair and gripped the edge of the crate she’d been leaning against. Korra gripped Asami’s hips, her shoulders rising up off the floor as she nibbled the sensitive part of Asami’s thigh.

Asami’s mouth fell open in a silent scream as she climaxed again. Her bottom lip turned from white to pink to red as the blood returned. Worried that Asami was about to come apart at the seams, Korra slowed down to the point where her lips were barely even brushing Asami’s inner thighs, avoiding her now hyper-sensitive clitoris. Despite Korra’s lighter, gentler, more indirect approach, Asami was quickly on the brink of orgasm again.

“Korra,” Asami gasped, plunging through another climax. “Oh spirits, I … I lov- _aaah!_ Shit … Av- Avatar!”

“You okay?”

Asami nodded, clambering off Korra.

“Y-yeah … uh-huh,” Asami was breathing heavily and it was a while before she could talk properly. Korra sat up, wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and draped a blanket around Asami’s shoulders. “D- don’t think I could’ve taken … much more … of that. It was amazing but … thought I was gonna … black out. Think I just … had a seizure,” Asami said, laughing breathlessly.

“Thatsh okay,” Korra lisped, rubbing her jaw. “My …” Korra swallowed her laughter. “My tongue wash getting tired.”

“Did you hurt yourself?” Asami asked, brushing her thumb over Korra’s lips dazedly.

“Nah, itsh jusht the … y’know, the bit underneath. Feelsh kinda numb.” Korra wrapped Asami in her arms and gently brushed her fingers through her hair as she dusted her cheek with kisses. “Take your time,” Korra whispered.

Asami nodded, her cheeks gradually returning to their normal colour and her breathing slowing.

“When you’ve caught your breath,” Korra whispered, running her fingers down Asami’s back the way she liked, “we can shneak … thneak ... _sneak_ back upstairs and we’ll have a nice cold shower. I’ll wash your hair. We’ll slip back to our cell and I’ll feed you the last of my chocolate …”

“My chocolate,” Asami murmured, smiling.

“I’ll feed you chocolate – doesn’t matter whose chocolate it is – while I read to you and then I’ll spoon the fuck outta you as you fall asleep.”

“Shounds lovely.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“Yesh.”

“Humph. Well that’s gratitude for you. I fuck your brains out and lose all the feeling in my tongue while doing it and what do I get, huh?” Korra grumbled jokingly, kissing Asami’s forehead. “I get ridiculed!”

Asami’s fingers danced across Korra’s cheek and she kissed her lightly on the lips. Asami deepened the kiss – kissing her the same way she had kissed her earlier when she’d been savouring the taste of tobacco on Korra’s tongue. Korra enjoyed it a lot more this time.

“Your hair’s a mess,” Asami said after she’d broken the kiss.

“Is it?” Korra asked, her cheeks burning. She ran her fingers through her hair. “I think that’s mostly your fault.”

“Can I brush your hair?” Asami asked.

“Yes! I mean, yeah, whatever. If you want,” Korra said, doing her best to feign indifference.

Asami laughed and climbed unsteadily to her feet. “I’m fine,” she said, holding her hand up to her forehead and almost dropping her blanket. She wobbled slowly over to the far side of the observation deck. Asami’s thighs rubbed against each other slightly as she walked. Korra bit her lip and wondered why she’d only just noticed this. “Were you humming ‘Hot Stuff’ while you ate me out?” Asami asked as she rummaged through the mess.

Korra shrugged. “Is that what that song’s called?” she asked, laughing.

“Told you Donna is timeless.” Asami found the hair brush and sat herself down behind Korra.

Before she began, she tapped Korra on the shoulder. Korra twisted around and raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“Why ‘Avatar’?” Asami asked. Her cheeks were still a little flushed and Korra could see the smear of oil on her cheek gleaming in the sunlight.

“Oh … umm,” Korra fidgeted embarrassedly. “Aang … y’know, the guy who had Raava before me … that was like his, umm, callsign when he was in the resistance. It was the first thing I could think of.”

Asami rolled her eyes and shook her head wearily.

The brush was missing even more teeth than Korra. But, as Asami began brushing, a tingling spread through Korra’s body. She sighed and closed her eyes.

“Asami …?” Korra murmured.

“Yes, sweetie?” Asami whispered, kissing Korra’s ear. The sound of Asami’s quiet voice sent another wave of shivers through Korra.

“Do you … when someone brushes your hair, do you, like, get tingles?”

“Tingles?”

“Yeah. It starts at the back of your neck and your scalp and kinda flows down your back and through your limbs into your fingers.”

“I … can’t say that I’ve ever had that.”

“Oh. It … it’s nice.”

Korra closed her eyes again, lost in the sensation of Asami running the brush through her hair and the static buzz washing over her skin. Eventually the brushing stopped. Asami’s hand caressed her waist under her vest and her lips brushed her neck.

“Stand up,” Asami whispered.

Korra knew what that husky note in her voice meant.

Korra smiled and did as she was told, pulling off her vest and kicking off her boots as she got to her feet.

Asami watched as she undid the knotted sleeves around her waist and let her jumpsuit fall to the floor. It had been several weeks since she’d last exercised and Korra’s abs had lost most of their definition. In fact, Korra was sure that her stomach protruded slightly over her underwear. Korra took off her underwear and threw them aside. She held an arm over her chest and ran her fingers embarrassedly through her hair. Still kneeling, Asami beckoned to Korra to come closer and let the blanket fall from her shoulders. Korra’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of Asami’s skin in the gloaming that saturated the observation deck.

Asami danced her fingers up Korra’s leg. She pressed her forehead against Korra’s stomach and sighed. She kissed her soft (and, Korra decided, definitely larger) belly, her lips tickling Korra slightly. Asami’s fingers brushed Korra’s and she began to trace the dragon’s tail coiled around Korra’s wrist. She looked up at Korra and smiled, her lips parted and her eyes wide, not with desire, but with something closer to adoration.

Korra heard Opal’s voice echo through her mind. _She looks at you as though you’re some piece of art_.

Asami climbed to her feet, never taking her fingers from Korra’s skin.

 _She can never stop touching you,_ Opal’s voice said insistently.

Asami gazed down at her and pressed her lips over Korra’s. Korra pulled Asami closer. The heat of Asami’s body against hers was like ecstasy.

_How can you be so oblivious?_

“You’re so beautiful,” Asami whispered as her thumb traced the shape of her lips.

_She’s crazy about you, you stupid fucking dork._

“Asami …” Korra said quietly.

_Just ask her to be your girlfriend!_

“Yes?”

Korra took a deep breath.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said quickly before kissing Asami again.

‘Fuck Opal,’ Korra thought. Whatever she and Asami had right then was wonderful and she didn’t want to do anything that would upset that perfect, precarious balance.

“Can I draw you?” Asami asked, before the kiss had even ended.

“Huh?”

“I want to draw you.”

“Right now?”

“Right now!”

“Oh, uh … okay.”

Smiling delightedly, Asami dragged a box over to one of the windows, wiping the dust from it with a blanket. With her gentle hand on her shoulder, Asami sat Korra down on the box. Korra felt suddenly and strangely embarrassed. Her entire body felt like rubber and she had to avert her eyes every time she looked at Asami.

“How … how do you want me to sit?” Korra asked as Asami ferreted around, trying to find the stack of paper she’d stolen a few months ago when an air vent had broken in the warden’s office.

“However you want,” Asami said, struggling to wrap the blanket around her shoulders while holding the paper, pencils, and her glasses under her arm. She dropped everything and groaned. Korra got up and draped the blanket around Asami’s shoulders and put her glasses on for her. “Thanks,” Asami mumbled, her cheeks flushed, as she sat down on the floor and gathered up her drawing supplies.

Korra sat back down on the box. She shuffled around a bit. The box was far from comfortable and when Asami looked up at her she became awkwardly aware of the folds of her stomach and her scar-etched skin and the shape of her breasts and her countless bruises. The tattoo on her arm felt ridiculous and her armpits needed shaving and she wished that her cheeks wouldn’t burn every time Asami looked at her.

Asami hadn’t even started drawing her yet and Korra was already wishing it would be over.

“Is this okay?” Korra asked, looking over her shoulder out of the window.

“Just relax,” Asami said. “We don't have to do this if you’re uncomfortable.”

Korra breathed out slowly. “No, it’s okay. Draw me like one your Republic girls, Asami.”

Asami chuckled and, balancing the paper on her knees, began drawing with broad, sweeping strokes.

Swallowing, Korra moved her hands from her lap to her sides, palms flat on the box.

The sound of rustling paper, the soft creaking of the observation deck, the scratching of graphite, and Asami’s gentle breathing sent shivers through Korra. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

Korra suddenly felt a deep sense of stillness wash over her. It was the kind of stillness that’s impossible to properly describe and impossible to properly remember, but which seems to touch your very soul.

Korra supposed there was probably some unpronounceable German word for what she was feeling.

“Lift your chin a little,” Asami said quietly, breaking the stillness.

Korra lifted her chin a little and tried counting the stars. She lost count after about a hundred. Si Wong’s second sun pulsated weakly, giving Korra the beginnings of a headache. Korra knew that it was actually a distant star, dying and bloated, which only appeared to be a second sun from the planet’s surface.

If she squinted, Korra could just about see Si Wong – a dirty Yuan amidst a hoard of diamonds. For the first time in a very long time, Korra found herself thinking of Raava. She was down there somewhere. Broken. Alone. Afraid.

Korra reached out with her mind, praying that this time there would be an answer.

_Raava? Raava, are you there?_

There was no answer. Maybe she was too far away. Maybe her implants were broken. Maybe Raava was too badly damaged to make contact.

 _I don’t know if you can hear me, Raava,_ Korra thought into the void, focusing her gaze on the dust-gold planet beneath her, _I don’t even know if you’re still alive. But I swear I am going to find you, Raava. I’m going to get out of this shit hole and I’m going to find you._

Korra stole a glance at Asami. Asami smiled at her, eyes darting over Korra’s body before returning to the paper in her lap.

_And something tells me I’m not going to be doing it alone._

The longer Korra sat there watching the stars and the fading sunlight, the more she began aching for Asami’s touch. She could feel Asami’s gaze roaming over her but she wanted more. She wanted her hand in her hair and her lips trailing over her skin and her head between her thighs. Korra was horny and bored. She was cold and her legs had gone to sleep and … was Asami was just chewing her pencil and staring at her breasts now?!

Korra coughed. Startled, Asami pulled her pencil out of her mouth and began shading something intently as her cheeks turned crimson.

Grinning to herself, Korra put two fingers in her mouth. When Asami looked up at her again, she took the slick fingers out of her mouth. As Korra slowly moved her fingers down between her legs, Asami gulped audibly and her pencil snapped.

“Enough drawing,” Korra said. “Come here. And keep your glasses on.”

Asami let her blanket fall from her shoulders and climbed to her feet. She was smiling broadly and blushing a little as she brushed the hair out of her face and knelt down in front of Korra.

Korra hummed to herself as Asami kissed her way up her legs, starting at her toes and making her way up from there. Her fingertips pressed into the flesh of Korra’s right thigh. Korra leant back, her hands running through Asami’s hair as she tasted her.

Asami’s tongue sent wave after wave of pleasure rocketing through Korra and she had to stifle a scream that made a desperate, choked rattle in her throat.

Asami mumbled something between Korra’s thighs.

“Huh?” Korra gasped.

Asami looked up at her, lips wet and red and grinning devilishly.

“In space,” she said, “no one can hear you scream.”

Korra rolled her eyes and pushed Asami’s head back down between her legs.

Later – Korra had lost track of time at some point after the second climax so ‘later’ was her best guess – Korra’s vision eventually cleared and she found herself lying face down on the cold floor. Her skin felt sticky with sweat and oil and her heartbeat was still drumming loudly in her ears. Korra felt as though she’d melted and was just a puddle of Korra-shaped gloop on the floor.

She could feel Asami lying on top of her. Asami’s hair was tickling her shoulder and her fingertip was drawing lazily down her back.

Korra groaned and tried futilely to move.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Asami whispered. “I thought you’d died.”

Korra chuckled. “What’s it called when a blood vessel in your brain explodes?”

“An aneurysm?”

“Yeah. That. I think I’ve had an aneurysm.”

“Aww, you poor thing,” Asami crooned as she decked Korra’s back with kisses.

“I’m cold,” Korra sighed. Without getting off Korra, Asami reached for a blanket and pulled it over them. She pulled Korra closer, nuzzling the curve of her neck.

“Better?” Asami whispered.

Korra nodded.

Asami continued to doodle on Korra’s scar-laced back with her finger as her nose brushed lightly over Korra’s earlobe.

“You’re horny again, aren’t you?” Korra said.

“What? No!” Asami spluttered. “What … I’m not … maybe a little. How could you tell?”

Korra smiled wryly to herself. “You’re drawing again.” Asami’s finger halted its aimless doodling on Korra’s skin.

Asami was quiet for a while before she finally whispered. “Okay, yeah. Are you ready for another round?”

“Nowhere near ready,” Korra groaned.

“That’s okay,” Asami whispered.

“I can’t feel my legs.”

Asami stroked her fingers through Korra’s hair.

Korra’s strength slowly crept back into her limbs and she tried to sit up. Asami helped her up and planted a row of kisses along Korra’s jawline.

“Asami …” Korra said, reaching a hand out to touch Asami’s cheek and gazing intently into Asami’s piercingly beautiful eyes.

“Yes?”

“Did you know that turtle-ducks have corkscrew penises?”

Korra had to hold Asami tightly, afraid that she’d collapse from laughter. She felt Asami’s laughter rattle through her body and her tears were hot against Korra’s bare chest. Asami was gasping for breath and trying desperately to say something. Korra closed her eyes and smiled sleepily to herself, relishing the warmth and the smell of Asami’s body and the sound of her hiccups.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmm, the amount of sex and happiness in this chapter makes me wonder whether something ABSOLUTELY SOUL-CRUSHINGLY AWFUL is gonna happen in the next chapter ..... 
> 
> Don't forget my Mako/Wu fic that is (not) absolutely essential reading if you want to understand what's going on in this story!


	10. Chapter 10

“Korra! I said: ‘Can you get me the wrench!’”

Korra tore her gaze away from Asami’s hair. The huge, cylindrical hangar bay was at the very epicentre of the prison’s spin so the illusion of gravity was non-existent there. This meant that the hair framing Asami’s face was an ethereal, mesmerising, smoke-black nimbus in the zero gravity.

She raised her eyebrows questioningly at Asami who was pouting frustratedly at her.

“Huh?”

Asami sighed wearily. She took her goggles off and dragged her hand down her face, leaving a trail of engine oil down her nose and cheeks.

“Wrench!” she said, a note of anger in her voice.

“Sorry,” Korra mumbled. She yanked on the cable that was strapped to the harness around her waist and glided along the gantry. She crashed into the squat utility box and felt something in her arm twinge in pain. No matter how long she spent in zero gravity – whether in Raava or the prison or wherever – Korra could never get used to it. She always felt sick and her head would spin with vertigo and she could never quite get the hang of stopping when she moved.

With clumsy fingers, Korra opened the metal lid of the box and unfastened the wrench. She was expecting it to actually weigh something and almost smacked herself in the mouth. That was another thing Korra could never get used to about low gravity.

She closed the box and clipped the wrench’s safety wire to her harness. Turning around too quickly, Korra nearly flew off the gantry but her harness’ cable snapped taught and she floated gently back down … or up, or … whatever. Zero gravity could go fuck itself.

Eventually, Korra made her way back to Asami and clipped the wrench onto her tool belt.

“Thank you, wrench wench,” Asami said, planting a kiss on Korra’s cheek. “What had you so distracted?”

Korra swallowed and willed herself not to blush. “Your … your hair.”

Asami rolled her eyes, tutted to hide her smile, and gave Korra’s other cheek a kiss.

“Well, I need you to pay attention,” Asami said, rolling up her sleeves. She gestured at the shuttle with her metal hand. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

Korra shrugged. “Raava’s a beauty. This,” she said waving her hand dismissively at the ship Asami was working on. “This is just a mass-produced, soulless piece of crap with wings on it.”

“Are you serious?!” Asami said in horror. “Look at her! Look at the sleekness, the utilitarian simplicity of the design. She’s a work of art!”

Korra stuck out her bottom lip, still unimpressed. “It’s not art. It’s unimaginative and …”

“Oh my fucking …” Asami laughed in disbelief. “You can _not_ be serious! This model reimagined the very nature of space travel!”

Korra made a dismissive noise like a fart and Asami scowled at her.

“How can you not see how revolutionary this design was?” she insisted.

Korra loved the way Asami got when she talked about this kind of thing. Her eyes would gleam with green fire and her hands never stopped moving. And when Korra disagreed with her about something, her lips would go through countless fascinating contortions and the blood would rise into her face. Korra had to admit, it was kinda hot.

“I don’t care how revolutionary it was. It’s … it’s boring!”

“Oh, so you just care about ships with, what? Huge rockets and lasers and shit?!”

“No! I didn’t say that!” Korra said, laughing. “It’s got no character! No history. No … I dunno … _personality_.”

“It’s a shuttle, not a cat!”

“Raava has personality,” Korra said sulkily.

“Hey, Varrick!” Asami yelled, a mischievous grin on her face.

“What?” Korra hissed. “No, no, no, don’t get Varrick involved!”

“ _Varrick_ ,” Asami shouted across to the next gantry where the head-mechanic was spinning round and round, his safety harness nowhere to be seen. “What do you think of this shuttle? Isn’t she a beauty?!”

Varrick, still spinning, opened an eye and glanced at them. “Who cares? It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice slurred from drink. “Nothing matters.”

Asami looked questioningly at Korra.

“You okay, Varrick?” Korra asked.

Varrick’s sigh was audible over the crashing and grinding of machinery that filled the hangar.

“I think he’s jealous that I have an assistant and he doesn’t,” Asami whispered, leaning forwards and her hair tickling Korra’s cheek.

“I’m not jealous! It’s just not fair. I’m so alone!” Varrick wailed melodramatically. “This is what happens when you forget to properly appreciate your assistant. You make sure you cherish your tiny violent assistant, Asami! You hear me? Cherish her!”

Anything else Varrick may have said was drowned out by the sound of him vomiting, something which is not a pretty sight in zero gravity.

Korra and Asami averted their gazes.

“He’ll be fine,” Asami said uncertainly, looking a little green beneath the dirt covering her face.

“You need me to get anymore wrenches or anything?” Korra asked.

“Nope. I’ve got everything I need, thanks,” Asami said as she pried a hatch on the side of the shuttle open. She shot Korra a wry smile. “If you’re bored then you can watch my hair or something.”

Korra coughed embarrassedly and rubbed her sore wrist. She had only been allowed to help Asami in the hangar on one condition – she had to wear a heavy metal bracelet on her wrist. This bracelet, she had been told, was packed with enough explosives to blow off her arm and half her chest and that they would do just that if she even looked like she was about to start trouble. And the worst part was that the damn thing was far too tight. Korra couldn’t wait to be rid of it this evening.

Chewing a thumbnail and trying not to think about the bomb strapped to her wrist, Korra hung motionless in the air and watched Asami.

Korra loved to watch Asami working. It wasn’t just because she loved the way Asami looked when she was covered in grease and oil and sweat with her sleeves rolled up. She couldn’t quite describe what it was about the way Asami did it, but there was almost a tenderness to the way she worked, whether she was replacing a blown fuse in the kitchen or fixing her arm or repairing a shuttle. Sometimes she would get frustrated and she could get impatient if something went wrong but that was more often than not, an anger at herself. Korra was sure that she could watch Asami and her clever fingers repairing rusty crap for the rest of her life.

Elbow deep in its mechanical guts, Asami talked softly while she worked, whispering soothingly to the shuttle, like a mother comforting a sick child.

“You silly thing,” Korra heard Asami whisper, seemingly oblivious to her audience, “that doesn’t go there. Don’t worry, I’ll have you feeling better in n-” There was an ear-splitting bang, a flurry of sparks, and a cloud of acrid smoke belched out of the hatch, engulfing Asami.

Swearing and spluttering, Asami kicked the pockmarked hull viciously.

Korra smiled to herself. That was another thing she loved about watching Asami work. Asami was ridiculously hot when she was angry. The look of murder in Asami’s eyes was the match that never failed to set light to Korra’s blood like gasoline. Korra bit her lip and drifted closer to Asami.

Asami groaned and slumped back against the hull of the ship.

Korra reached out a hand and brushed a lock of hair out of Asami’s grease-smeared face. Asami sighed loudly and stuck her bottom lip out in frustration. Korra kissed her pout away and began to pull down the zip of Asami’s jumpsuit.

“Why …” Korra said, barely taking her mouth from Asami’s. “Why does your … zipper … always get stuck?”

Asami didn’t answer, she just pulled her closer, her blackened fingers leaving dirty smudges on Korra’s vest. Her breath was hot in Korra’s mouth and her lips tasted gloriously sweet, if a little like engine oil. Korra nibbled her lip softly and practically sucked the make-shift lipstick off Asami’s lips. Asami hummed throatily and her warm, calloused fingers slid up underneath Korra’s vest, smeared grease-trails marking their journey across her skin. Korra stopped struggling with the zip and let her hand glide up to Asami’s throat. Fluttering beneath her fingertips, Asami’s pulse was getting faster and faster.

“Korra …” Asami whispered, her lips brushing Korra’s nose.

“Yeah?” Korra said, leaning forwards and trying to recapture Asami’s lips.

“There’s … something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Asami said, stroking her metal thumb over Korra’s cheek.

“Okay.” A slight gnawing feeling of worry rose up inside her stomach.

“I’ve been thinking … and I …” Asami paused, worrying her lip between her teeth and taking a deep breath. Korra left a row of kisses along Asami’s jaw. Beneath the smudges of oil, Asami’s cheeks were turning pink. “I wanted to say that …”

Korra’s lips reached Asami’s throat and she sucked gently. Korra blew on the mark she’d made and Asami’s fingers coiled in Korra’s hair.

“You wanted to say …?” Korra said, her hands returning to Asami’s stubborn zipper.

“It …” she said, her voice breaking. Korra gave the zipper a tug and it finally came unstuck. Asami gulped. “It can wait.”

Korra smiled crookedly. She unbuckled Asami’s tool belt and safety harness and turned her around, pushing her weightless body forwards so that she was pressed up against the dented hull. A small ladder, its rungs embedded in the shuttle’s body, ran up (or down) to an airlock far above (or below) their heads. Asami gripped one of these rungs with her metal hand and placed her other hand flat against the shuttle’s keel.

Singed holes and craters peppered the shuttle’s body like a lunar landscape. The stench of ozone and burnt metal filled the air, mingling with the smell of Asami’s hair and sweat.

Stroking Asami’s untamed, mercurial hair aside and kissing her neck, Korra reached around and pulled the zipper down to Asami’s waist.

“Is anyone watching?” Korra asked, suddenly feeling like a child, terrified she was about to be caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“Nope! It’s fine! No one’s looking!” Asami said hurriedly.

“I don’t think you even checked,” Korra chuckled, reaching inside Asami’s jumpsuit.

Korra raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“You … you’re not wearing any underwear!” Korra gulped. Asami smiled as her cheeks turned scarlet. “Aren’t you cold?”

Asami smiled wryly and turned her head, kissing the corner of Korra’s mouth. “A little,” she shrugged. “I figured you’d be able to warm me up though.”

Korra rolled her eyes. “Did you practise that in front of the mirror?”

“Every day for like a week,” Asami laughed.

Korra nibbled and sucked Asami’s earlobe as her hand trailed down from Asami’s throat to her breast. Asami’s breasts felt different in the zero gravity. It was … _odd_. Korra missed not being able to feel their weight in her hand.

Her hand (eventually) continued its descent. Korra’s fingers found a small, faded surgical scar along one of Asami’s ribs.

“What’s this scar?” Korra asked as she traced its length with her fingertip, her other hand circling Asami’s nipple through the coarse fabric of her jumpsuit. “I’ve never noticed it before when I’ve been … in this area.”

“I had an implant put in there,” Asami said. “Underneath the rib. I must have been about twenty. It maintains my hormone levels. Means I don’t have to keep injecting myself every day.”

“Like a hormone pacemaker?” Korra asked as her fingers left the scar and slid further down Asami’s abdomen.

“Kind of, I guess.”

“One day …” Korra said between kisses to Asami’s neck, “you’re going … to show me … every single … one of your … scars and … tell me … the story behind … each one … while I … probably do something with my tongue. I dunno, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet, to be honest.”

“How about tonight?” Asami whispered, her voice a soft purr as Korra’s hand descended lower and lower inside her jumpsuit.

“Deal,” Korra said, smiling as she stroked the inside of Asami’s thigh. .

Moving up from Asami’s breast, Korra’s left hand crept up Asami’s throat to her mouth. Delicately, she traced the shape of Asami’s lips with her fingers while she traced the lips of Asami’s vulva with her other hand. Beneath her fingertips, Korra felt Asami bite her bottom lip as she put her finger inside her.

Asami let go of her lip, opening her mouth to gasp. Korra took the chance to slip her finger into Asami’s mouth. She felt Asami smile and begin sucking gently, stroking soft circles against her fingertip with the end of her tongue.

Korra slipped a second finger in between Asami’s thighs, and a second between her lips. Asami’s tongue flitted around and between her fingers.

After a few minutes, Asami gasped and saliva shot out between Korra’s fingers. Instead of running down her wrist, it formed gleaming dew drops that flew through the air before splashing against the hull of the shuttle.

Korra laughed as Asami tried to apologise, which, with two of Korra’s fingers in her mouth and another two between her legs, wasn’t easy. Planting a kiss on Asami’s flushed, grubby cheek, Korra curled her fingers and found the spot that always managed to make Asami melt. Sure enough, Asami arched her back against Korra and a rumbling hum spread through her chest.

As Asami came, Korra took her fingers out of her mouth, trailing them down her throat.

Her eyes half-lidded and half-dazed, Asami let go of her handhold. Korra zipped her jumpsuit back up and let Asami float, arms outstretched as she caught her breath. Korra wiped her hands on her vest and, a firm grasp on Asami’s shoulder so she wouldn’t float away, placed tender kiss after tender kiss on Asami’s forehead and nose.

Asami eventually blinked the haze out of her eyes and Korra threaded her fingers through hers. She pulled Asami into an embrace with an arm around her waist.

“May I have this dance?” Korra asked, Asami’s head resting against her chest and her metal fingers clinging to the back of Korra’s vest.

Asami laughed, and the two of them spun and twirled and pirouetted through the air, weightless and free as thistledown. Korra’s safety harness groaned, wrapping itself tighter around them with every turn. Eventually, Korra ran out of cable and they were jerked abruptly back to the gantry.

They disentangled themselves and Korra helped Asami get her tool belt and harness back on.

Asami dragged Korra over to the shuttle’s open access hatch and, after cracking her knuckles and covering Korra’s face with kisses, began to show her how to replace a burnt-out fuel injection system with just a handful of rusty screws and a few pieces of cannibalised scrap metal.

Korra’s attention was riveted on the sound of Asami’s voice, the smell of her body, the warmth of her hand on hers as she guided her movements with the wrench.

A small chunk of machinery, its component pieces fused and melted by heat, floated out of the open hatch. Asami tried to grab it as it drifted past her head, but her metal fingers were too slow and clumsy. She ended up accidentally flicking it with her mechanical forefinger and the charred piece of the shuttle’s inner workings shot through the air like a comet.

“I’ve got it!” Korra said as she jumped off the gantry. Her cable whirred as it unravelled from the reel on her hip. She reached out a hand and managed to grasp it just as she came to the end of her cable. Korra hugged the lump of scorched metal to her chest as the whiplash tugged her back to the gantry.

Korra tried to land gracefully, aware that Asami was watching her, but despite all her efforts she ended up careening right into her.

Korra knocked the wind out of Asami and they both slammed against the hull of the shuttle. Asami grabbed hold of the gantry and pulled them both down onto its cold, meshed floor. Flakes of yellow paint and rust from the gantry swirled around them like moths. Asami was lying on top of her, and although Korra could feel the warmth of her body, she couldn’t feel the reassuring weight of Asami’s body.

Their noses brushed and Korra felt her cheeks redden.

She passed Asami the lump of metal. “Sorry,” she whispered. “You okay?”

Asami didn’t answer. She threw the piece of machinery aside and it bounced off the hull of the shuttle, ricocheting out of sight. Asami linked her fingers though Korra’s so that she was holding her hands against the floor of the gantry. Korra opened her mouth to say something. Asami’s bottom lip brushed Korra’s upper lip and she forgot what she was going to say.

“Can I finish drawing you tonight?” Asami asked, her metal thumb gently stroking Korra’s forefinger.

Korra squeezed Asami’s cold hand and nodded.

Asami had been working on that picture for the best part of three days and had refused to let Korra see it. “Not until it’s finished,” she had told her in no uncertain terms last night after nearly half an hour of incessant pestering.

Although she’d been a little less than enthusiastic about it at first, Korra had decided that she actually quite enjoyed being drawn. More than that, she _loved_ it. Aside from the fact that their drawing sessions had so far all ended with mind-blowing sex, Korra had grown to love them for other reasons too. She loved the way Asami’s confident but careful pencil-work rasped on the paper. She loved the stillness she felt and the way the cold air caressed her bare skin. She loved the way Asami chewed her pencil when she scrutinized her work and pouted when something had gone wrong.

Most of all, she loved the way Asami looked at her while she drew. She loved the intensity and almost blasphemous adoration of those green eyes as they glanced up at her over those crooked glasses, a few wonderfully intimate seconds at a time.

Korra always felt beautiful when Asami looked at her like that.

Her nose, a little crooked from being broken so many times, didn’t annoy her as much as it used to. She didn’t wish she could wash away the web-work of scars lacing her skin anymore. She didn’t hate the way her stomach folded quite so much now. How could she when Asami looked at every inch of her body with that mixture of fascination and captivation?

Korra now welcomed every new wound she gained. Her body was a bouquet for Asami and every new bruise was another fresh rose for it. Every new scratch and graze and mark on her skin was something new for Asami to add to her picture, something new for her to study and to translate into graphite.

Asami’s eyelashes were fluttering against Korra’s cheek as her lips brushed her neck.

“What was it you wanted to tell me earlier?” Korra asked, stroking her fingers through Asami’s hair.

“Oh, I was … umm …” Asami cleared her throat and averted her gaze. Korra reached out and, a gentle hand on her cheek, turned Asami’s face back towards hers. Asami’s jaw flexed and she looked down at her resolutely, her dirty, calloused thumb stroking Korra’s cheek. “Korra. I know it’s probably too soon to say this. But …” She took a deep breath and swallowed. “Believe me, I wouldn’t be saying this if I hadn’t thought long and hard about it … and … what I’m trying to say is that … I … I think that I’m …”

“Inmate!” a coarse voice called out, cutting off whatever it was Asami had been about to say.

Asami let herself rise up off Korra. Scowling at the pair of guards, Korra sat up. They were armed with batons and one of them was holding a pair of handcuffs.

“Me?” Asami asked, unconsciously checking that the zip of her jumpsuit had been done up.

The guard holding the cuffs shook his head. “Her,” he said, pointing at Korra. “The warden wants to see you.”

*

Asami trudged wearily down the brightly lit corridor on her way back to her cell. The harsh fluorescent lights made the rust look like congealed bloodstains were smeared across the walls. She felt heavy and sluggish and a little bit sick in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t tell if that was because she’d spent so long in zero gravity or because she was worried about Korra.

She decided that she’d do some reading while she waited for Korra, though she doubted she’d be able to concentrate. Asami wondered whether, after her talk with the warden, Korra would still be up for any drawing tonight.

Asami had been racking her brains for hours, trying to work out why the hell the warden wanted to see Korra. Not a single possible explanation she’d come up with had been either likely or comforting.

She tapped her foot impatiently and scowled at the guards as she waited for the huge metal door that led to her cell block to open. Her jumpsuit was chafing. Not putting her vest or underpants on had seemed like a good idea this morning. Now, she wasn’t quite so sure.

She had an itch in the hand that didn’t exist anymore. Biting her lip, she tried not to think about the irritation that she knew wasn’t really there.

She also tried not to think about how close she’d come to telling Korra how she felt about her. That had been stupid.

There was a deafening sound of metal groaning as if in pain and the door finally began to open. It got jammed halfway and there was a dull clunk that seemed to suggest the opening mechanism had just decided to give up the will to live.

“I know the feeling,” Asami muttered as she squeezed through the gap onto the gantry.

Beneath her, tired inmates were meandering back to their cells. Asami paused at the end of the gantry and took a deep breath. She had an awful sinking feeling that, somehow, everything was about to come tumbling down.

She made her way down the stairs, slowly and reluctantly, and pushed her way through the crowd.

Dull repetitive thuds were coming from her cell. Clenching her metal fist, Asami stepped over the threshold into the semi-darkness.

Korra hadn’t noticed her.

Korra had taken the mattress off her bed, rolled it up, and propped it up in the corner of the cell. She was punching it over and over, furious grunts cutting through her heavy breathing. Her body was covered in a sheen of sweat and her knuckles had started bleeding.

It may have just been a trick of the light, but Asami was sure she could see several fist-sized smudges of blood on the far wall of the cell.

She still had the bracelet strapped to her wrist.

Asami put her tool box down and took a step forwards. “Korra?” she said quietly.

Korra’s punches stopped.

Her arms fell to her sides and she turned around. Her cheeks were wet with tears and her jaw was clenched in fury or pain.

Korra sniffed and dragged her forearm across her face, wiping her tears away.

“What …” Asami began. Her voice caught in her throat and she took Korra’s raw hands in hers. She stroked her work-hardened thumb over Korra’s knuckles, searching Korra’s face for any sign of what might be wrong, but Korra refused to look at her. Asami cleared her throat and kissed the back of Korra’s hand. “What did the warden want?”

Korra swallowed and looked up at Asami. Her eyes were red and raw and fresh tears were welling up and threatening to spill down her cheeks.

“I’m being transferred,” Korra said, her voice heavy and thick with tears.

For a second, Asami forgot how to breathe. She opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. She just shook her head.

Korra took her hands from Asami and turned her back. Asami suspected she was crying.

“I … I don’t understand,” Asami managed to say. She did understand. She just couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Her legs suddenly felt weak and she sat down on her bed.

“I’m being sent to another facility,” Korra said, her voice devoid of emotion. “I don’t know where. Don’t know why.”

“Wh- when?” Asami asked, the lump in her throat making it almost impossible to speak.

“Two days from now,” Korra said. “He …” Korra laughed bitterly. “He said I could register a complaint. The fucking bastard!” she snarled, lashing out at the wall. There was a dull, wet _thwack_ as her fist struck metal.

“This … no … there’s got to be … I …” Asami clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, spirits.”

Korra turned around, gleaming tears running down her cheeks and her lip quivering. “I can’t lose you,” she said quietly. “I can’t lose you, Asami.”

She knelt down, her head in Asami’s lap, and sobbed. She sobbed so hard and for so long that Asami was actually afraid she would hurt herself.

Asami stroked Korra’s hair and whispered soothing nothings to her. She swore that she would never leave her. She promised everything would be okay even though she knew that it wasn’t true.

She told Korra not to be afraid.

Korra slept fitfully that night, curled up in Asami’s arms. Asami didn’t sleep at all. She cradled Korra protectively, her wet tears hot on Asami’s skin. She ran her fingers through Korra’s hair and tried not to cry.

“I’m not going to let them take you from me, Korra,” she whispered into the dark. “I refuse to lose you.”

She listened to the sound of Korra’s breathing and the crackle of the energy barriers long into the night. Sleep was just beginning to creep up on her when Korra suddenly cried out and sat up. Asami almost yelped in surprise.

Asami wrapped her arms around Korra and held her tightly. “It’s okay,” she whispered desperately. The tears she’d been holding in since Korra told her about the transfer began to run down her nose. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Fresh tears were streaming down Korra’s face but she looked almost as though …. almost as though she were … smiling?

Korra’s breathing gradually slowed and she laughed through her tears. She reached out a hand to Asami’s cheek and wiped her eyes.

“Asami!” she gasped breathlessly. “I heard her! I heard Raava!”


	11. Chapter 11

Korra had been sitting in the lotus position on the cold floor of their cell for what Asami guessed had been at least an hour. Asami had been sitting next to her the whole time. She was resting her chin on her knee, watching Korra and listening to her breathing.

Asami shivered.

She got up and picked up a blanket from the bed. She draped it around Korra’s shoulders, careful not to break her concentration. Asami groaned and stretched. Her back cracked loudly. She winced and shot a glance at Korra, worried she’d disturbed her. Korra’s chest was still rising and falling gently, her breathing soft and regular.

Korra’s mattress was still rolled up in the corner. The dark smudges of blood on the coarse fabric had barely begun to dry. Asami sat back down next to Korra and rubbed her tired eyes. Korra had told her to go to sleep, but Asami had insisted on watching over her.

Illuminated in the cell’s electric twilight, Korra looked so beautiful and peaceful. Asami couldn’t help thinking that, despite her concentration-furrowed brow and the salt trails down her cheeks, this was probably the most serene she had ever seen Korra.

Time trickled slowly by and Asami began to grow worried. Three or four times she reached out a hand to touch Korra, almost to reassure herself that she was still there. Three or four times she nearly touched Korra and three or four times she changed her mind.

Asami’s leg had gone to sleep.

She tried to ignore it for as long as possible.

Grumbling under her breath and clambering reluctantly to her feet, Asami stretched her tired limbs and shook some feeling back into her leg. Chewing her lip in pain as the blood rushed back into her leg, Asami looked down at Korra. She wanted more than anything to just scoop Korra up in her arms, to curl up in the corner, wrapped in darkness and each other’s arms, to just hide from the world with the woman she was fairly certain she had fallen in love with.

This was stupid. She should be doing something, not just staring at Korra and feeling sorry for herself. They didn’t have time for that.

Asami rifled through the mess under her bed and pulled out the stained book of coin tricks she had stolen from the library. Korra liked things to do with her hands and she loved challenging herself. Asami had thought she might get some enjoyment from learning the tricks in the book, even if the illustrations were vague and hard to follow. She had, of course, forgotten that you needed coins to do coin tricks. Korra had laughed when Asami had given her the book. She had laughed so hard she had cried and been plagued by hiccups for two days. The musty book, although fairly useless, had been worth every Yuan (that Asami hadn’t paid) just for that laugh.

She wasn’t entirely sure why, but Korra’s laughter always made Asami think of her mother and the jams and chutneys she used to make. Asami could still remember the smell of fruit and autumn filling the house, dipping her blackberry-stained fingers into the sack of sugar, and the spoonfuls of hot jam her mother would let her test which always burnt her tongue.

Asami wished she could bottle and preserve Korra’s laugh so that on dull, rainy winter days, she could open a jar and taste that sweet laughter.

Asami tore a flyleaf out of the back of the book and rummaged in her pocket looking for her pencil. She eventually found it and sat down next to Korra, spreading the paper out on the floor.

She chewed the end of the pencil for a moment and began scrawling diagrams and calculations. She already knew the voltage and range of what she was going to build. She knew every nut and bolt she would need. She had built them a hundred times over in her head, a hundred different ways. She didn’t need to write anything or draw anything or check her mathematics. This was just a coping mechanism. There was something soothing about doing the maths over and over.

Turning the paper over, Asami began listing materials in her spidery handwriting. Muttering to herself, she gnawed the inside of her cheek as she racked her brains, trying desperately to think of what she could do without and whether she’d be able get everything in such a short amount of time.

She hoped Kai would be able to read her awful handwriting. It had been years since she’d lost her right hand, but she still struggled to write with her left. It frustrated her to no end but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to replicate even a semblance of her old, precise, flowing style. Drawing was easier than writing, but even that was difficult to do with her left hand.

The paper was soon covered in her near-illegible writing. She scanned her list over and over several times, holding it up to the light. When she was sure she’d gotten down everything she needed, she stuffed it into her jumpsuit and glanced at Korra. She still hadn’t stirred.

Tying her hair up into a bun and sticking her pencil into it, Asami crossed her legs and waited. Asami gnawed her thumbnail and watched Korra pensively. A lock of hair had fallen down into Korra’s eyes. Asami had to fight the urge to brush it aside.

She was dying for a cigarette.

Korra opened her swollen eyes and Asami let out a sigh of relief.

“Are you okay? Did it work?” Asami asked.

Korra nodded, pushing her hair out of her face. “Yeah … the signal’s weak. A lot of static. I got through in the end. She’s been worried about me. Wanted to know if I was okay. I could barely get a word in. She says ‘hello’ by the way,” Korra said, smiling and blushing a little. “She can’t wait to meet you.”

Asami smiled and reached out her hand, knuckles purple from the cold, and squeezed Korra’s hand.

“Did you tell her the plan? Is she going to be able to get us out of here?” Asami asked eagerly.

Korra’s smile faded and she looked down at the floor.

“No.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. Asami was afraid Korra would start crying again but she just sniffed loudly. Korra had cried all her tears last night. She had nothing left.

“Why not?!”

Korra realised she had a blanket draped over her shoulders and pulled it tighter around herself.

“She’s damaged,” she said quietly. “Badly. She can barely talk to me, let alone take off.”

“Shit,” Asami hissed.

“We’re on our own,” Korra said, fidgeting with the bracelet strapped to her wrist.

“No,” Asami said, drawing Korra into a hug. “No we’re not.”

*

Korra poked at her breakfast with her spoon. On the bench next to her, Pabu sat eyeing her untouched bowl of what she supposed was fish stew with a hungry gleam in his eyes. She decided that she’d lost her appetite and slid her bowl across to Pabu. He sniffed at it and looked up at Korra, then back at the stew, then back at Korra with a look of disappointment in his big eyes. Korra shrugged apologetically and popped a piece of dried fruit into his mouth.

Korra rubbed her tired, raw eyes and stifled a yawn. She put her spoon down and glanced at the faces around the table.

Opal was listening to Asami intently, her jaw set firmly, but her fidgeting hands betraying her nervousness. She hadn’t touched her breakfast either.

Kai and Jinora wore their discomfort on their sleeves and kept looking meaningfully at each other as if they were having a silent conversation with just their eyes.

Ikki, unlike the others, had a look of excitement in her eyes. That worried Korra a little.

Lin’s stony face was unreadable as always but Korra noticed that Kya was holding Lin’s hand in hers and stroking her thumb across her knuckles.

“It could be days before they even realise either of us is missing,” Asami said. “Maybe even longer.”

Asami was trying to sound confident, but Korra could detect a slightly quavering note of worry in her voice. She hoped none of the others would notice.

Korra had been against asking the others for help but Asami had convinced her that there was no other way. Still, she felt like shit for dragging their friends into this so she was letting Asami do all the talking. Truth be told, Korra was even more scared than Asami. She wouldn’t admit it, not even to herself, but she was terrified. So she was putting on a sullen front and pretending that none of this bothered her. She didn’t think Asami was convinced but she hoped the others wouldn’t realise that she was clinging to her cool façade by her close-bitten fingernails.

“Not to insult your skills as a mechanic, Asami, but … assuming that it even works and the barriers do go down,” Jinora said, looking at her tattooed hands, “what happens if everyone just sits there and waits for the power to come back on?

“They won’t,” Kya said quietly. “There’s nothing quite like the illusion of freedom.” Korra wasn’t sure any of the others had heard her. She hoped Kya was right.

“I mean … how do you even start a riot?” Jinora asked.

“We could always pick someone up and yell ‘RIOT!’” Kai suggested, trying and failing to lighten the mood.

Asami scratched the back of her metal hand.

“We … I thought that we could … I dunno, get everyone all riled up today,” Asami said, her gaze darting uncertainly between Korra and Jinora. “Spread some gossip. Like maybe they’re increasing work hours or something. Start some fights. Get everyone pissed off. Ikki, you’re good at pissing people off.”

“It’s one of my many talents.”

“If that doesn’t work then I guess we could use Kai’s plan.”

“No, wait!” Kai said, nervously. “Th- that wasn’t a plan … I was … it was a joke! Everyone got that I was joking right?!”

“I know,” Asami said, smiling reassuringly. “So was I.”

“And it has to be today?” Opal asked.

Asami nodded. “Yes,” she said. “It doesn’t give us a lot of time but we don’t really have any other choice.”

“So ... what? You’re going off to join the endless fight against Kuvira? What happens to the rest of us after you’ve gone?” Opal asked quietly.

Asami glanced at Korra, a pained look on her face. They had been dreading a question like this. Neither of them wanted to leave their friends behind, especially not in a shithole like this, but they didn’t have much choice.

Korra placed her scabbed fingers over Asami’s cold hand.

“Well …” Asami said, “if everything goes according to plan, you should have free-reign of the prison. If not, then …”

“We’ll be fine,” Lin said. “There’s something fishy about this whole transfer. That kind of thing never happens. I don’t like it. At least this way she’ll have a fighting chance.” Lin turned to Korra and … Korra wouldn’t have called it a smile, but it was the closest to one that Korra had ever seen Lin give. “You go, kid. We’ll be fine.”

Korra nodded.

Opal looked around the table and took a deep breath, clenching her jaw resolutely. “What do you need us to do?” she asked, trying to smile and spreading her hands on the table.

Asami breathed a sigh of relief and mouthed a ‘thank you’ across the table to no one in particular.

“Kai, I have a list of things I need you to get me.”

Kai nodded. “Of course.” Asami handed him a piece of paper and he squinted at it.

“Sorry about the crap handwriting.”

“That’s okay. I should be able to decipher everything,” Kai laughed as he got to his feet. He squinted at the list and looked up, his eyebrows raised in confusion. “Umm, what’s a metal … oxide … varistor?”

“Get what you can and I’ll help you look for everything else,” Asami said.

He unzipped his jumpsuit and stuffed the paper into his binder. “Okey dokey.”

“I … I drew a little map at the bottom of the list. Meet me as soon as you can in the store room that the arrow’s pointing at.”

Kai nodded, kissed Jinora’s cheek and sauntered off, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

“Jinora,” Asami said. “We need you to access the archives.”

“What?!” Jinora turned pale. Korra felt another stab of guilt for dragging her and the rest of them into this. “Why? I … I dunno, that sounds …”

“I know,” Asami said tenderly. “I wouldn’t ask if we had any other way. But no one knows computers like you do.”

Jinora tapped the table with a fingernail. Korra was just about to tell her to forget about it when she took a deep breath.

“Okay. What do you need me to do?”

“We don’t know exactly where Korra’s ship is. She’s on Si Wong and we have a rough idea where but we need to check Korra’s arrest documents to see where she was shot down. Raava shouldn’t be too far from there. And if you can, we need you to change some override protocols.”

“What kind of changes?”

“I’ll go with you,” Korra said. Most of the plan had been Asami’s but Korra had insisted on doing this. “I’ll keep you safe. I’ll tell you everything when we’re there.”

“How are we going to get in? Is Kai …?”

“Kai will be busy getting things for me,” Asami said. “Besides, no matter how much he likes to brag, I don’t think he could get past those doors. Not with the amount of time we have anyway.”

“So how …?”

“That’s where Opal comes in.”

“Me?”

“We …” Asami trailed off. Korra looked down at her lap. “You and Bolin have a … connection. He likes you. You need to … distract him.”

“Distract him?” There was a slight note of … Korra though it was anger … in Opal’s voice. “You mean …?”

“Yes. I’m sorry … I know this isn’t … You don’t have to do _anything_ that …”

“No,” Opal said, folding her arms across her chest. “It’s … it’s okay. I’ll do it.”

“Take his ID card. That way Korra and Jinora will be able to get into the archives without setting off any alarms and access the computers. Opal. You don’t have t-”

“I said I’ll do it!” Opal stood up, almost knocking over her breakfast. Pabu bounded across the table to her and they left the canteen.

Asami bit her lip and rubbed her eyes. Korra gave her metal hand a comforting squeeze. Asami squeezed back gently. She got to her feet, still holding Korra’s hand, and sighed.

“Kya,” she said, “whatever hooch you have hidden away needs to ‘accidentally’ get confiscated. Lin. How do you feel about starting a few fights?”

Lin cracked her knuckles. “It’d be a pleasure.”

*

Opal had been assigned to cleaning duty in the bathroom again. It had been almost two weeks since she’d been allowed to work in the library. It had been almost that long since she’d worked in the laundry room. She was convinced that there was some kind of conspiracy going on. Some prick in an office who had never set foot in the prison must have checked their graphs or their pie charts or something and seen that life was just about bearable for her. And they couldn’t have that now, could they.

Or maybe it was just that Wan Shi Tong had found out about the huge pile of books she’d taken from the library.

The bleach stung her nose and her eyes. Her feet were wet and her hands were sore and the smell of the bathroom clung to her. She missed the smell of the books and the library’s threadbare carpet under her feet. Laundry duty was hard work and noisy, but at least it was warm and there were plenty of hiding places. The bathroom was as cold as … Opal was too tired to come up with a clever simile. It was cold as _shit_.

The worst part of this … well, the worst part was the constant smell of faeces. But one of the worst parts of this was that she had to do it alone. Pabu wasn’t much company. He was nearly always asleep in his favourite spot on top of one of the toilet cisterns.

Most days Bolin would show up and chat for a while though. He’d bring her a book sometimes since she couldn’t swipe any good stuff from the library herself anymore. She’d sit on the sinks and flip through the books while he pushed the mop around for a bit.

Some of the books were better than others. A few days ago it had been a crappy ‘Nut Tuk’ film novelisation that sounded like it had been written by an eight year old. Or Varrick. Bolin insisted that he was actually the actor who’d played the eponymous hero but had been forced to give up acting with the onset of war. Opal didn’t believe him. Not for one minute. Even if he did have the shoulders for the role.

Recently, she’d started reading to him. They’d share a cigarette and he would listen to her while he stroked Pabu or cleaned the sinks for her or often, while he just sat smiling, enraptured by the sound of her voice.

They had finished ‘Angels in America’ yesterday. She didn’t normally read plays but she’d enjoyed reading it aloud to him and doing all the different voices. She didn’t think that the play had dated very well but Bolin had cried at the end nonetheless. He pretended he hadn’t but she’d seen him wipe his eyes on his sleeve.

Opal had told him that she knew he’d cried and he’d turned pink. His face had changed from pink to red when she’d kissed his cheek.

For the first time since she’d been reassigned to the bathroom from hell, she hoped Bo wouldn’t show up today.

She was elbow deep in her fourth toilet bowl when she heard a familiar, awkward cough. Pabu pricked his ears up and squeaked, bouncing down from his cistern.

“Hey, you!” Bolin cooed as he covered Pabu’s nose and whiskers with kisses. “I’ve missed you so much! Yes I have. Oh, yes I have!” He burst into laughter as the ferret squirmed headfirst into his shirt.

Opal fought a smile.

“Hi,” she said quietly.

Bolin ran his fingers through his hair and smiled.

“Did you know this prison has a gym?” he laughed. “How long have we had a gym? There’s weights and everything. I’ve been here forever and I had no idea there was a gym.”

“There was a sewage leak like six months ago,” Opal said. “It still stinks too badly in there for anyone to use.”

“Oh. Right. Still, it’s crazy that I only just found out about it today. This place is huge.”

Pabu popped his head out of Bolin’s trouser leg, twitched his nose, and scurried off across the tiles, probably chasing after a cockroach.

Opal turned back to the toilet. Her rubber glove had a hole in it and toilet-water was beginning to seep in. She really needed to keep the gloves away from Pabu.

“So … I, uh, I really enjoyed that angels play so I thought I’d see what other plays there were and … y’know nothing has been kept alphabetised since you got reassigned … and I found this,” he said, holding up a thin, battered book. It was missing its cover and its pages were yellowed with age. “It’s Shakespeare. ‘Romeo and Juliet’. I think this edition has been heavily abridged, but anyway …” he trailed off. He glanced up at Opal. “The greatest love story of all time!”

“You know they both die at the end right?” Opal said, peeling her glove off and wiping her hand on her jumpsuit.

“Whoa,” Bolin laughed, passing her the book. “Spoiler alert!”

“And Juliet was like thirteen,” she snapped, flipping through the stained, gossamer-thin pages. “That was pretty fucked up even for Shakespeare’s time.”

“Are you okay, Opal?”

“And it’s not a love story. They weren’t in love. Juliet was too young to know any better and she only fell for that piece of shit Romeo because she was so petrified of being thrust into marriage with Paris. And Romeo certainly didn’t love her. He was only too eager to leave at the first light of dawn after they’d had sex. He was just a pathetic, predatory creep who’d gotten tired of his self-imposed, self-delusional, Petrarchan ‘friend-zone’ bullshit with Rosaline.”

“Opal … is something wrong?”

“I bet he sniffed his mother’s panties.”

“Opal …?”

“You know their first meeting ... you know that whole exchange with the ‘blushing pilgrims’ and ‘sin from my lips’ and shit was all written to be overtly blasphemous, right? That whole play is a warning about infatuation and obsession and revenge and ‘sensitive’ guys preying on young girls. ‘The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet’,” she said mockingly as she read the title page. “The real tragedy is that anyone thinks it’s a love story.”

Bolin reached out and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Opal …” he said. “What’s wrong? I can find a different book. Or did … did I do something?”

She brushed his hand away and groaned. She ran her fingers through her hair and groaned again, loudly. “No … it’s not …”

She sighed and turned away from him.

“You don’t have to talk about it. It’s okay. Do you want me to stay? I’ll go if ... y’know, give you some space and …”

Opal spun around, grabbed him by his collar, and kissed him.

She kissed him deeply and passionately, standing up on her tip toes. She dropped the book and ran her fingers through his messy hair. Bolin was too surprised to kiss back for a while.

Slowly, he closed his eyes and reached up a hand to her cheek. When he finally did return the kiss, Opal found herself feeling ecstatic and terrified at the same time. She had been simultaneously craving and dreading this. If he hadn’t kissed back then she maybe wouldn’t have had to do what she knew she had to. But he _had_ kissed her and it was wonderful.

His mouth opened and she pulled away, their lips clinging together for a split second as if unwilling to be pried apart.

“Wow …” Bolin said, breathless. “That was … wow. You shouldn’t have done that.”

“’Give me my sin again’,” Opal whispered, her thumb brushing over his lips.

“Did … did you just quote Shakespeare at me?”

“Shush.”

“Because that is so hot,” Bolin whispered, a finger under her chin, lifting her face up to his.

His lips closed over Opal’s. His breath was hot in her mouth and she pressed her body closer against his. For as long as she could, she tried to enjoy the feel and the taste of his lips. For as long as she could, she tried not to think about what she was going to do.

Bolin yelped in surprise as she pushed him into a cubicle. He staggered backwards and almost put his foot in the toilet. He steadied himself and opened his mouth to say something, his eyebrows raised in confusion almost comically, but nothing came out.

Opal closed the door. It had no lock. She kissed him again, hurriedly and sloppily this time, before kneeling down in front of him. She undid his belt buckle and unzipped his trousers.

“Opal?” Bolin gasped. “What the f-“

“Relax,” Opal said, her hands shaking as she pulled his trousers down. “We both want this.”

She felt sick.

“What the fuck?!” Bolin pushed her away and yanked his underwear back up.

Opal sat back against the graffiti-muralled door. “You … you don’t want me to …?”

“NO! No, I don’t want this!” he shouted as he fumbled with his belt buckle. “Why are you doing this?!”

“Because … because I … this is what I want!” she said.

Opal was not a good liar.

“No you don’t,” he said, his voice softer now.

“Yes, I do. I thought … I thought you did too.”

“What … what’s gotten into you?” He didn’t sound harsh or accusatory but his words still stung. “What’s really going on?”

“I _do_ want …” Opal couldn’t even bring herself to keep lying. She felt the tears beginning to rise but she fought them back.

“Opal.” He crouched down in front of her and touched her cheek gently. “I don’t understand. Please tell me what’s happening.”

She refused to start crying.

“It’s …”

“Please …” Bolin said, his big green eyes filling with tears and his voice cracking slightly. “Please don’t lie to me. Please.”

Opal hid her face in her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. Korra’s being transferred. She’s … she and Asami are escaping tonight. They … needed your ID card. They needed me to … to _distract_ you. So I could take it. I’m sorry.”

Bolin didn’t say anything.

Opal looked up at him. She still refused to cry no matter how much she wanted to.

“Please …” she said, her voice choked. “Please say something.”

Bolin stood up and straightened his uniform. She moved away from the door and he left the cubicle.

“Please … I’m sorry,” Opal whispered, though she wasn’t even sure he was still within earshot.

She couldn’t tell how long she’d been sitting on that cold, grime-layered floor of the cubicle, just fighting back her tears. When she finally emerged, Pabu rubbed himself up against her legs. She smiled half-heartedly and picked up her mop.

‘Romeo and Juliet’ was sitting on the edge of one of the sinks.

She put down the mop and picked up the dilapidated book. The pages were crisp and dry to the touch and so thin that they were almost translucent. The musty smell of old paper and mildew filled the air. She flicked through the age-bleached pages until the book fell open at Act 1 Scene 5, and Bolin’s ID card fell out onto the tiled floor.

She clutched the book to her chest as tears began to roll down her cheeks.

“It’s not a love story,” she whispered.

*

Korra and Jinora played cards in the kitchen while they waited. They were sitting on a greasy work surface and trying to keep out of Pema’s way. Jinora had won every single game and Korra was convinced that she was cheating. She glanced up over her cards at Jinora, scowling suspiciously.

Jinora played her hand and smirked. “I win,” she said cockily.

“You don’t know that,” Korra grumbled. “I could have a fantastic hand for all you know.”

“You don’t though, do you?”

“Are you reading my mind?” Korra asked, jokingly.

“No.” Jinora swallowed. “No, you just have a terrible poker face.”

Korra pouted for a few seconds before scooping the cards up and shuffling them. “Best ninety-eight outta a hundred and … ninety-five?”

“What did you have?” Jinora laughed.

“Doesn’t matter,” Korra grumbled.

She dealt out the cards again and watched Jinora carefully as she picked up her cards.

Jinora had her sleeves rolled up, exposing her tattooed forearms, but she was sitting cross-legged on the worktop so Korra wondered whether she was hiding extra cards in her socks.

“I was thinking …” Jinora said quietly. “About your plan. Wouldn’t it be easier if only you escaped? Like Asami said, it’s too risky for all of us to try to get out at once and … surely it’d be safest if you went on your own.”

“I’m not leaving without Asami,” Korra said matter-of-factly.

Jinora nodded and drew a card out from the deck. “Yeah … I can understand that.”

“I don’t want to leave any of you here,” Korra said. She hoped Jinora knew she meant it. “But Asami …”

Jinora smiled warmly and put a hand on Korra’s knee. “I know,” she said. “Don’t worry about us. A nice little riot and we’ll be running this place. Just you wait and see. Oh, look at that.” She spread her cards out triumphantly. “I win again.”

Korra scowled and reshuffled the deck again.

“Where is Opal?” Korra muttered under her breath.

“Does Asami know?” Jinora asked, looking intently at her cards and avoiding Korra’s eye.

“Does Asami know what?”

“That you … y’know,” Jinora raised her eyebrows meaningfully and smiled.

Korra stared at her cards – another crap hand – and willed herself not to blush. She shrugged and leant back against the fridge.

Jinora won the next three games.

Korra was dealing out the cards again when a scream ripped through the kitchen. Korra pushed herself off the counter and reached for a vegetable knife.

“Shit! Oh, my motherfucking shit!” an anguished voice called out. “It’s in my motherfucking eye! Shit!”

“Pema?!” Jinora shouted.

Korra gripped the handle of the knife and leapt over a row of cupboards that was piled high with dehydrated vegetables and canned food. Pema was kneeling on the floor, trying desperately to reach the sink. Tears were pouring down her face and her eyes were red and swollen.

Slipping the knife quickly into her boot, Korra crouched down next to Pema.

“What’s wrong?!” Korra asked, trying desperately to sound calm.

“Shit,” Jinora said, “she’s in labour, isn’t she?!”

Pema laughed through her tears. “I’m not … I’m not in labour. I was grinding up chilli peppers and I rubbed my eyes like an idiot.”

Korra breathed a sigh of relief and Jinora looked like she was about to tear her hair out.

“Don’t scare me like that!” she shrieked.

Korra helped Jinora get Pema to her feet and took her over to the sink. Korra turned on the rust-stiff tap.

“No, no, no,” Pema said as snot streamed down her face. “Milk!”

“Milk?” Korra looked confusedly at Jinora. She shrugged and ran to the fridge.

They wasted half a carton before they finally managed to get enough in Pema’s eyes to make her hands stop shaking and her nose stop running.

Jinora helped Pema wash her face clean while Korra cleared aside several heavy sacks of rice and moved a box for Pema to sit down on.

“What were you making?” Korra asked. The chopping board was covered in wrinkled red peppers. Korra couldn’t see any other ingredients of any kind.

“Pepper spray,” Pema said, easing herself down onto the box, a hand on her stomach.

“Seriously?” Korra asked in disbelief. “You can make pepper spray from these things?”

Pema nodded.

“Why were you making pepper spray?” Jinora asked, perplexed. “Was Lin rude about the chicken laska again?”

“It’s for Korra. For tonight.” Pema took a gulp of water from the bottle Jinora had fetched for her. “It’ll sting like hell but it won’t do any permanent damage. That’s why I was going to mix in a little of that too,” she said pointing to a bottle of oven-cleaner by the sink.

Korra was taken aback. Not even Asami had thought of making pepper spray, let alone using bleach. Korra had assumed that Opal had exaggerated the story about Pema and the meat cleaver. She wasn’t quite so sure now.

“Pema … I could kiss you,” Korra said. “I will kiss you!” She squished Pema’s face between her hands and planted a wet kiss on her forehead. “You’re an evil genius, Pema. Thank you.”

Pema tutted and wiped her forehead on her apron, fighting an exasperated smile.

Korra picked up one of the peppers and waved it at Jinora.

“Bet you can’t eat a whole one of these without passing out,” Korra whispered to Jinora.

“Don’t you dare!” Pema groaned.

When Pema was feeling more or less recovered, Korra dealt her into their game. The three of them sat around a large overturned tub that once had been full of industrial strength lard and played a few games.

Korra lost every single one of them.

Pema kicked them out of the kitchen after a while so that she could start preparing for dinner. They were given rags and bleach and began cleaning the tables in the canteen.

“So …” Jinora said as she rubbed at a stubborn yellow stain. “You and Asami …”

“Don’t even try it,” Korra sighed.

Jinora smirked at her and put her rag down. “Ikki said that you were thinking of proposing to her.”

Korra pulled a face. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

Jinora thought for a second, her lips pursed. “I don’t really know. Ikki’s not the most reliable source … buuuut, I mean, this is you and Asami we’re talking about. You two are ridiculous.”

“Oh my fucking …” Korra groaned.

“You and Asami are just constantly screwing, aren’t you?”

Korra spread her arms wide and opened her mouth to say something but all that came out was an indignant huff. She pinched the bridge of her nose and pulled a face at Jinora. She put her hands on her hips and scowled.

“We don’t … we … do other stuff too,” she scoffed, pointing commandingly at Jinora. “It’s not constant … We’re not some … some … sex-obsessed freaks. We’re just … really … good at it. But we don’t … I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“Oh, come on. Every single one of us has walked in on you two doing it at some point. There was Kai in the showers. Opal in the library. (Did Asami really gag you? No, you know what? I do not want to know.) There was Ikki and Pema in the kitchen. Lin in the laundry. Me in the showers. Kai in the showers again. I know I’m forgetting something … Oh, Opal said Bolin walked in on you two doing it in a storeroom.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that either there have just been a lot of unfortunate coincidences, or you two are just constantly doing it!”

“We are not constantly doing it,” Korra said, her voice a resentful and not at all convincing whine.

Jinora raised her eyebrows at her. “What _do_ you two do aside from screwing?”

“We … I … I read to Asami some nights. And …”

“You read to her? I can’t … I can’t picture that.”

Korra rubbed her temples and closed her eyes in weary surrender. “Neither would I to be honest. But Asami enjoys it. She likes listening to me read, curled up next to me. She says I have a nice voice. I do silly voices sometimes and point out plot holes and take the piss out of the characters and stuff. That always makes her laugh.”

“Anything else?”

“There are totally platonic massages. Don’t give me that look. And … spooning. Tons of spooning. We take turns being the big spoon but I think Asami prefers being the little spoon. I’ve started helping her do her makeup. I’m not very good at it but I help. We talk. We talk a lot. And … and I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this, you wretched little …” Korra pulled another face and threw her rag at Jinora.

Jinora chuckled. “Either way, you two really need to find a more private place to do it.”

Korra grumbled under her breath as she turned her back on Jinora and started work on another table.

Jinora sat herself on the table, stopping Korra from cleaning.

“Sorry, I’m just teasing,” Jinora said. Korra rolled her eyes. Secretly, she was grateful. Because of Jinora, for a few minutes, Korra hadn’t been quite as absolutely shitting-herself-terrified about what was going to happen that night. She wondered if Jinora realised what a huge help she was being.

“S’okay.”

“You and Asami are very cute together,” Jinora said. “Even if you’re still not officially _together_ together.”

“Get off the table,” Korra sighed.

“I bet Asami’s just dying for you to ask her out. You know she’ll say yes, right? I’ll tell her for you. Oh, or even better, I could write a poem for you! A nice little sonnet. That is _so_ romantic.”

“I will stuff this rag into your mouth if you don’t stop talking.”

“Rude.” Jinora climbed down off the table.

They carried on cleaning. Well, Korra cleaned. Jinora began writing the sonnet on a napkin. She had done the first seven lines and was just about to start the poem’s second half when she glanced up and tapped Korra on the shoulder.

“Hey,” Jinora said, nodding to the doorway. “It’s Opal.”

Korra dropped her rag and looked up. She wasn’t sure if her stomach was in turmoil because she was excited or petrified.

Opal was holding a tattered paperback that was missing its front cover. She looked like she’d been crying.

“Opal?” Korra said. “Opal, what’s wrong? What happened?”

She took a thin piece of plastic out of her pocket.

“Opal?” Jinora asked.

Opal threw the ID card onto the table.

“I hope it’s worth it,” she said, her voice thick with emotion as she stormed out of the canteen.

Korra watched her go and felt her heart sink.

“Korra …?” Jinora asked quietly.

“Let’s get to work.”

Within ten minutes, Korra and Jinora were past the heavy metal doors and trying to figure out how to get the computer terminal to work. They had only been stopped by one guard on their way there. Korra had told him she was going to the bathroom and kept walking despite his protests.

The archives were a seemingly endless network of dark hexagonal rooms joined together by narrow walkways. It reminded Korra a little of an abandoned, frozen hornet’s nest she had found in Raava’s landing gear a year or two ago.

Huge computer banks stood all around them like gravestones, flickering and humming restlessly in the dark.

“Stop. Stop, you’re just going to break it,” Jinora hissed. “Don’t just jam it in like that. Give me the card. Give it to me!”

Korra narrowed her eyes at Jinora and begrudgingly handed the ID card to her. “Fine. There.” Her breath hung in the air like smoke.

Jinora made a frustrated face and wiped the card on her jumpsuit. Korra gave the computer terminal a kick and thrust her hands into her pockets.

“Don’t kick the computer,” Jinora snapped. “Just … just go stand over there.”

“I’m not going to stand over there.”

“Fine. Whatever. Just don’t hit anything else, okay?”

“Okay!”

“ _Okay!_ ” Jinora looked like she was going to strangle Korra. Then her face softened and she brushed her hair out of her face with shaking hands. “Sorry. Sorry, I’m … I’m stressed. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Korra put a comforting hand on Jinora’s shoulder. “We’ll be fine. Relax.”

“Relax she says,” Jinora muttered under her breath as she swiped the card over the sensor and the keyboard lit up. “Of course we’ll be fine. If we get caught we’ll just be beaten up and sent to the Box. It’s fine.”

“Have you got it yet?” Korra asked, looking over Jinora’s shoulder.

“I’ll get it when I get it! Can you be quiet? I need to concentrate!” Jinora said, clearly fighting the urge to shout. “I’m sorry. We’re going to get caught! If I get killed tell Kai I love him.”

Korra turned Jinora around and brushed her hair out of her face. “It’s all going to be okay. I am not going to let anyone hurt you. You can do this.” She kissed Jinora’s tattooed forehead and forced a smile. “You can do this.”

Jinora took a deep breath. “Okay. Yes. I can do this.” She turned back to the computer terminal and cracked her knuckles. “I can do this.”

Korra blew on her hands and did her best to wait patiently. After what felt like an eternity, Jinora waved her over.

“You find it?”

“I’ve got you arrest record and … wow. Did you really do all this?”

Korra glanced at the screen. “Yeah, most of it.”

Jinora raised her eyebrows in surprise and nodded. “Well, okay. Uh … yeah. Here’s where you were taken into custody.” Jinora told Korra the coordinates and brought up the most recent map of Si Wong on record.

“So …” Korra said, examining the screen closely. “She’d be around here somewhere. They didn’t find her so she could have gotten quite a long way before she crashed.”

“Maybe,” Jinora said thoughtfully, chewing her lip in concentration. “But, looking at this map, I’m seeing a lot of shifting sand dunes. There are rocky outcrops here. And here. Your ship could have landed right in front of them and they wouldn’t have noticed.”

Korra nodded. Hopefully, once they were on the surface, Raava would be able to guide them to her.

“Thank you,” Korra said.

“That’s … don’t worry about it. Can we go now?”

“There’s one more thing we … I need.” Korra stuck her hands into her armpits. It was ridiculously cold in there. “Can you hack the overrides on one of the shuttles?”

“Probably,” Jinora said, uncertainly. “And no one says hack anymore.”

“And … we need you to change the locking protocols on the main doors for all the cell blocks and up to the hangar.”

“Change them how?”

“We need them to unlock when there’s a huge surge of power. That way we should be able to open them even after everything goes dead.”

Jinora chewed her lip. “It … You know … I think it would be easier to just … what if we could get all the doors to unlock now and make sure that all the computers and card readers and everything say they’re locked. That sounds a lot simpler than getting them to unlock during the surge. That could go wrong so easily.”

“Okay, yeah, whatever,” Korra said hurriedly, looking anxiously over her shoulder at the door. “Do whatever you think will work.”

“Trust me,” Jinora said, her fingers a blur on the keyboard. “I’ve got this … I think.”

Korra decided to give Jinora some space while she worked. By the door, she crouched and listened. She listened for any sign of guards or technicians coming to the archives. As the minutes dragged out, all she heard was the humming of the computers and the rushing of blood in her ears.

Her fingers were turning purple but she didn’t notice. She was thinking about Opal. Had she gone through with it? She must have done if she managed to get the ID card. Korra hoped Opal would be able to forgive her.

It would be worth it, Korra told herself. When she and Asami were free, it would all have been worth it. Korra wished that she could believe that.

In the distance, Korra heard the dinner claxon sound. The metallic cacophony rattled through her skull and stung the back of her eyes. No, wait. It wasn’t the sound of the bell doing that. Korra rubbed her eyes and she felt something in her head, more a sensation than a sound. Something in her head that wasn’t quite a voice.

_Korra …_

“Raava?” Korra whispered uncertainly. The voice in her head didn’t feel like Raava’s. The voice in her head was too loud to be Raava. Too afraid. Too human. It was lacking the cold detachment, the serenity.

_Korra! Get out of here!_

Still crouching, Korra turned around slowly.

In the half-light of the computer screen, she could see Jinora and a guard, his arm around her neck and a gun to her head. He must have come in through another entrance.

Shit! Korra should have noticed him. At least he hadn’t noticed her yet. Unlucky for him.

Korra ducked behind one of the monolithic data banks. She edged closer, trying to control her breathing and her rising anger. If that bastard so much as harmed a hair on her head, Korra was going to tear his fucking larynx out and shove it into one of his soon-to-be-many orifices.

He was saying something to Jinora. Korra couldn’t hear him over the white-hot rage that was threatening to spill over.

She was out of condition. She knew this. It had been weeks since she had last fought over more than a card game or a stolen towel. And Korra’s last real fight hadn’t ended well for her. Weeks of peaceful inactivity and sloth had taken its toll. Her body was soft, unprepared. She had lost her flow, her rhythm. She would have to use her anger. It would be messy, but spirits knew she had enough of it to get the job done.

A voice, or at least an echo of one, wafted through her mind again.

_Korra! Please! Get out of here!_

This wasn’t Raava’s voice, Korra was certain.

 _Tell Kai,_ the voice in her head said as an indescribable feeling of second-hand fear and something that she supposed was love touched her. _Tell Kai I love him._   

Korra didn’t take the time to wonder how she was hearing, or feeling, Jinora’s voice in her head. She clenched her fists and leapt out from behind the data bank.

She kicked Jinora’s legs out from under her, fleetingly hoping she hadn’t hurt her, and drove her fist into the guard’s unprotected throat. He fell backwards, hitting the back of his head on the screen of the computer terminal. Korra’s fists pounded his ribs and soft, vulnerable stomach until she felt something crack.

Unsure as to whether the splintering had been his ribs or her fingers, Korra pulled him to his feet and head-butted him in the face. For a second, everything flashed white, then red as the blood from his shattered nose crept down her forehead into her eyes.

He tried to say something, but he just wheezed and spat up blood. Korra was almost disappointed that he wasn’t putting up a fight.

Holding his wrist, she let him fall to the ground. He tried to writhe out of her grip for a few seconds, clawing at the floor with his fingernails. He tried desperately to reach his gun while Korra caught her breath and wiped his blood out of her eyes.

She placed her foot on his shoulder, and gave his arm a twist. There was a sound of bone breaking and tearing through flesh. He didn’t scream. Somewhere in the back of Korra’s mind, smothered in red fury, she supposed he had passed out.

She let go of his arm and it fell limply at a previously impossible angle. The anger slowly ebbed and Korra’s breathing calmed. Jinora bent down over the guard’s broken, ragdoll body. Korra had regained enough of her composure to wonder what Jinora was doing.

When she realised what Jinora was doing, Korra held out her hand.

“Give it to me,” she said quietly, breathing heavily.

Jinora hesitated for a moment before she handed the guard’s stun gun to her.

Korra aimed the gun at the base of the guard’s neck, her hands still shaking with adrenaline. She pulled the trigger over and over until the smell of burnt hair and cooked meat filled the air.

She threw the gun aside and it clattered across the floor.

Korra wiped her hands on her jumpsuit trousers and looked up at Jinora.

“Hey,” Korra whispered, crouching down in front of her and taking her hands in hers. “You’re okay now.”

Jinora nodded.

Korra was struck suddenly by just how young Jinora was. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. Seventeen at the most. A frightened little girl, Korra thought.

“Is he …?” Jinora asked quietly and, Korra thought, on the verge of tears.

“Yes. He’s dead.”

“Good.”

“Can … can you hear what I’m thinking?” she asked at last.

Jinora shook her head.

“But you can make me hear what you’re thinking.”

Jinora nodded. “Yes.”

Korra nodded and grunted thoughtfully.

“Did you finish the … the thing?” Korra hated herself for asking, but she had no other choice.

“Yes. Yes, it’s all done. The code’s not … elegant, but it’ll do its job.”

“Let’s get you out of here,” Korra said. She pulled Jinora into a hug and held her tightly. “You’ve done enough for today.”

Just before they left, Jinora retrieved Bolin’s key card and Korra dragged the guard behind a row of data banks. Hidden in the cold archives, it would be a while before the guard’s body started smelling. By the time it became noticeable, she and Asami would be long gone.

*

Asami ran her hand through her hair and rested her head against the window. She hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours and it was beginning to take its toll. Her head was swimming and her vision was bleary.

Beneath her, gleaming with a dull, golden aura was Si Wong. Down there, somewhere, was Raava.

Asami tapped the window with her metal forefinger. “We’re coming for you,” she whispered.

She had been coming down to the observation deck for spirits knew how long. For the first time since she’d found this forgotten deck, rolled the shutters back, and gazed with wonder out at the stars, Asami felt exposed. Vulnerable.

Almost two years now, she had been stuck in this prison. It had been almost two years since she had last felt the wind in her hair. Almost two years since she’d worn her own clothes or smoked a cigarette that hadn’t tasted of rat shit and anti-freeze. Two years since her last bath. Two years since she’d last listened to music. Or seen a movie. Or ridden her motorcycle.

They were two years that felt like an entire lifetime.

Someone with Asami’s skills could have escaped from this sorry excuse for a prison at any point during those years. But she hadn’t had any reason to. Not until now.

In a way, getting stuck in this place had been a relief. The war had taken so much from her. It had taken her father, her arm, her home, and something unnameable deep inside herself that she hadn’t known was there until it was gone. This prison had, in many ways, been a welcome respite from the violence and the fear that came with war. She wasn’t sure she wanted to give up this sanctuary just yet.

And, as much as she hated herself for thinking it, this shit hole had become her home. The closest thing she had left to a family was here. In a few hours, and if everything went according to plan – and that was a very big ‘if’ – she’d be leaving it all behind.

Well, not all of it, Asami thought. She’d be with Korra. That would be worth it. But still, she couldn’t help thinking that all of this was happening too quickly.

She had spent the last twenty minutes wandering around the observation deck, just feeling sorry for herself and touching things. She had been feeling the blankets, rubbing them against her cheek and breathing in the lingering smell of Korra on them. She had said goodbye to her plants, stroking their leaves comfortingly, and tapped her metal fingers against every crate and box as if to memorise every inch of the place. It had been while stroking the curve of the spiral staircase that Asami had realised what she had been doing and sat herself down by the window.

Looking out at the stars, Asami realised she could barely remember what it felt like, what it meant, to be free.

And that terrified her.

Asami was so wrapped up in her own thoughts, she didn’t realise that she wasn’t alone.

“I brought you some tea,” Korra said. Asami turned around and smiled. Korra was holding a steaming, chipped mug that was missing its handle. The smell of peppermint was beginning to fill the observation deck. Asami wondered how Korra had managed to get down the pipe without spilling the tea. “I thought you might be cold down here.”

“You’re so sweet.” Asami climbed to her feet and took the mug. She glanced down at Korra’s hands and frowned in concern at her grazed, bloodied knuckles. There was a gash on Korra’s forehead and Asami wondered whether the spattered stains on her jumpsuit were blood. She was going to ask what had happened but changed her mind. “Thanks,” she said quietly, lifting the mug to her lips.

Asami gulped down a mouthful of the tea. It burnt her tongue and the roof of her mouth but she hadn’t eaten since breakfast and the tea was deliciously sweet so she didn’t mind.

“Are you okay?” Korra asked. “You seem …” she paused, searching for the words. “Out of sorts.”

”Sorry … I’ve just been thinking about something Opal said.” Asami glanced out of the window, out at the ocean of stars and Si Wong and freedom. She clutched the mug tightly, relishing the warmth in her work-worn hand. Korra waited patiently while she took a moment to find the words to express what she was feeling. “The world doesn’t need me,” Asami said at last, without looking back at Korra. “I’m completely and utterly irrelevant. And I don’t mean in the existential, the-universe-is-so-big kind of way. I’ve been stuck in this cesspit for two years and this stalemate still hasn’t changed. Kuvira is still on the verge of victory. The Republic is still clinging on by its fingernails. Everything is just like it was when I was captured. It’s … it’s basically pointless to try to stop Kuvira. The outcome will be the same whether or not I fight. The Republic will fall with or without me. They don’t need me.”

Korra moved closer. Asami could smell Korra’s sweat, the coppery tang of blood, and felt her gaze on her. Avoiding her searching eyes, Asami drank the last of the tea and looked fixedly at the stars.

“You’re probably right. The Republic doesn’t need you. But …” Korra paused. Asami turned and met Korra’s eyes. “… I do. I need you.”

Korra shrugged slightly, as if to say ‘for what little that’s worth’.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Screw the Republic.” Asami let out a laugh despite herself. Korra pouted at her. “Don’t laugh. I’m being serious.”

“I know.”

“Forget the Republic,” Korra said earnestly, almost pleadingly. “Forget Kuvira and the Empire and everything. All that ever did was give you pain.” Korra’s fingertips brushed Asami’s cheek and she looked up at her with tears in her mismatched blue eyes. “Just be with me.”

“Always,” Asami whispered.

Korra closed her eyes and rested her head against Asami’s chest, wrapping her arms around her waist. Asami kissed the top of Korra’s head and stroked her fingers through her hair.

“There was a fight at dinner,” Korra said into Asami's chest. Asami wondered if that was where Korra got her wounds. “The whole prison’s on boiling poin-”

The mug slipped out of Asami's clumsy metal fingers and shattered as it struck the floor, cutting Korra off.

Asami swore under her breath.

“It’s fine,” Korra said, bending down to pick up the pieces. Asami ground her teeth in frustration and squeezed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Kai said you’ve been down here nearly all day.” Asami nodded wearily. “You haven’t eaten have you? I should have brought you something instead of tea. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise. It was really sweet of you to bring me that. And you’ve been busy too so ... How …? Did everything go okay?” she asked.

Korra got to her feet and placed the fragments of the mug carefully on a crate. She nodded. “Yeah. It all went okay. Opal got the card. Jinora did her thing. We’re all set.”

“Good.” That still didn’t explain Korra’s bloodied jumpsuit and raw knuckles.

Korra knitted her eyebrows together. “Did you know Jinora’s a telepath?”

Asami raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Really? Wow … no. No, I didn’t know that.” She folded her metal arm across her chest and held her blistered forefinger to her chin thoughtfully. “I’ve heard stories about the nomads having abilities like this though. It kind of makes sense. Evolutionally speaking, I mean. Divide a species up, scatter them to the winds, and expose the different groups to different environments and they’ll begin to adapt. Over the generations, the species will begin to diverge into new …” Asami saw the look on Korra’s face and trailed off. “Sorry,” she whispered, smiling.

“I love it when you talk science,” Korra said as she shook her head good naturedly, almost smiling. Asami realised that she hadn’t seen Korra smile since she’d related Raava’s message this morning. She felt an aching in her stomach. She would have given anything to see Korra’s smile one more time before all hell broke loose tonight.

“Even when I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about?”

“ _Especially_ when you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Asami laughed embarrassedly and hid her blush behind her hand. Korra waved vaguely at the squat, Frankenstein’s monster of a device that was standing at the centre of the deck near the stairs, surrounded by a mess of tools and gutted machinery. “Is it all ready?”

Asami took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

Korra picked her way carefully across the debris strewn floor and peered at Asami’s handiwork.

“You’re sure it won’t fuck with the life-support?” Korra asked anxiously.

“All the life-support functions – oxygen recycling, heating, the centrifuge, all that – that’s all shielded. I checked it all a few weeks ago. The main hangar is shielded too so the shuttle will be fine. The doors, the cells’ energy barriers, the lights, all of that will go down. If we’re lucky, we’ll still have the emergency lighting but the shielding on that is … not great. Your bracelet’s trigger will become inert. We’ll be able to get it off without it blowing up. And … I just realised, your eye will stop working too.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Korra admitted.

“There’s a good chance that it will eventually reboot. Hopefully. Same for your implants. You won’t be able to talk to Raava for several hours. Maybe longer. But … there shouldn’t be any permanent damage. If there is … it’s …”

“It’s not the kind of thing we can fix with a rusty screw driver and duct tape,” Korra said. “What about your arm?”

Asami laughed. “I built surge protectors into it with scraps I scavenged from a heart monitor while I was still woozy from blood loss in my hospital bed. And this morning, I knocked this together,” Asami said, rolling up her sleeve, revealing her metal forearm.

She had stripped away what little remained of her arm’s silicone casing and bolted two small aerosol cans that had once contained deodorant to her arm. Embedded in her arm like vines in ancient stonework, a multitude of tubes and wires connected the cylinders to a metal disc soldered onto her palm. This disc was polished to a gleaming bluish sheen and a coil of copper wiring was woven around it.

Korra got to her feet and held Asami’s metal palm in her scarred hands. Her fingers traced every new wire and screw embedded in her cold, unfeeling flesh.

“Did it hurt?” Korra asked. Asami was surprised by the question. She had expected Korra to ask what this modification would do, not whether it had hurt when she had done it to herself.

“No,” Asami said. Korra looked unconvinced and didn’t let go of Asami’s hand. “It’s chemical powered and it’ll be activated by the surge in my arm’s circuitry so it won’t be affected by the EMP or drain power from my arm. It’ll … well … you’ll see.”

Korra lifted Asami’s metal hand to her lips, kissed her palm, and closed her stiff fingers. “Okay. Are we ready?”

“We’ve got to take the bomb up the stairs. If we set it off down here then the prison’s hull will take the brunt of the blast.”

Korra looked at the bomb and groaned. It was almost as tall as she was and a good deal heavier, Asami suspected.

With Korra’s help, Asami unscrewed the rod at the top of the device. She would have helped Korra lug the heavy base up the winding, rusty stairs but Korra insisted on doing it herself. It took her almost half an hour to get it up the staircase and through the broken airlock.

Korra sprawled out on the floor when she’d finally set the base down. She stayed like that, whimpering in pain and exhaustion while Asami reassembled the bomb. Asami’s metal hand, with its new additions, was even less willing to cooperate than usual. She had to reattach the spire-like top, coil the thick metal cable back around it, set up the timer, and connect the device to the prison’s main power supply, all with just one properly working hand.

Sweat dripping from her brow, Asami cracked her back and sighed.

“Done,” she said. “Now we wait.” Wait and pray.

It was getting late. She helped Korra back onto her feet and they made their way back to their cell.

As they went, Asami couldn’t help looking with a strange fondness at everything she was about to leave behind. The flickering halogen lights. The layers upon layers of yellow paint in all its varying shades that covered almost every surface that wasn’t caked in rust. The stained floors and the miles of windowless corridors. It all seemed like home to her.

As they were waiting for an airlock to open, Asami reached out a tentative hand to touch the wall. It was deathly cold to the touch and slick with dew. The humidity control probably needed retuning, she thought. Glancing at Korra and wiping her fingers on her jumpsuit, Asami sighed. She reached out her hand, brushing her little finger against the back of Korra’s hand.

Without looking at her, Korra linked Asami’s metal little finger in her grazed little finger and, though Asami couldn’t feel it, she gave a little squeeze. Asami smiled and all thoughts of climate control left her mind.

She wasn’t leaving her home, Asami realised. Her blue-eyed home was leaving with her.

Asami could barely stand by the time they were back to their cell. She needed to sleep. She tried to hide it but the looks of concern Korra kept throwing at Asami meant she knew it too.

There was something in the air, Asami decided as she waited on the threshold of the cell as Korra was searched. An almost palpable restlessness was bubbling throughout the cell block. She could almost taste it. The guards could sense it too. They were on edge, afraid. Three inmates were beaten senseless before the barriers went up. Asami guessed that it was to show who was in control, but really, it just made everyone even more pissed off.

Asami waited impatiently as Korra was patted down. They were taking extra precautions tonight. Not that it would do them any good. No one had bothered to check her mechanical arm and Korra had nothing hide. Asami ground her teeth as the guard’s hands lingered a moment too long on Korra’s chest. Korra rolled her eyes at her and she had to stifle a laugh.

“Can I go now?” Korra asked as the guard felt up and down her leg for the third of fourth time. “I have to say my goodbyes … if you know what I mean.” Now it was Asami’s turn to roll her eyes.

“Take your boots off,” the guard instructed in a flat, monotone voice.

Korra turned pale.

Before Asami knew what had happened, Korra had been slammed down onto the floor, a knee in-between her shoulder blades, and a gun pointed at her head.

“You just made my day!” laughed the guard, tossing a small vegetable knife to his second-in-command.

Asami screamed silently as a shower of Korra’s blood fell like red sleet across the floor.

Asami felt faint.

Blood cascading from her lip and clutching her ribs, Korra was kicked into the cell and fell sprawled on the floor. Asami wrapped her arms around her, holding her tightly as the barriers were activated and the lights went out.

“How could you be so stupid?” Asami whispered, her voice hoarse as she stroked Korra’s hair. “What were you thinking?”

“I … forgot … it was there,” Korra spluttered.

Asami pulled her closer and, her hand shaking, tried to wipe the blood from Korra’s face.

The cell had been ransacked. Asami’s tools were missing. Her books had been taken. Her razor, her pencils, her box with the holo-photo of her mother and father. It was all gone. Their mattresses had been ripped open and the filling was spilt across the floor.

As Korra wiped the blood from her mouth, Asami did her best to tidy up.

After she had righted the mattresses and shaken the blankets out, Asami began searching the dark recesses of the cell, hoping against hope that something, _anything_ was left. Asami’s heart turned summersaults when she found a few pieces of crumpled paper tossed into a corner. She swallowed her tears as she stuffed the creased drawings of Korra and the torn Ginger poster into her jumpsuit.

“Asami,” Korra said, sitting on the bed and dabbing at her lip with a wad of toilet paper.

“Yes?”

“Sleep.”

Asami began to protest, but Korra looked sternly at her, threw the bloody toilet paper into the toilet, and held her hand out to her. Reluctantly, Asami let Korra guide her into bed. She stretched herself out and laid her head wearily in Korra’s lap.

“I’ll wake you in an hour or two,” Korra whispered.

Asami drifted off into a restless sleep almost as soon as her head touched Korra’s lap. The last thing she was aware of before she slipped into an uneasy slumber, was Korra plaiting her hair and humming quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Opal isn’t actually entirely right in her assessment of the reasons for Juliet’s supposed love of Romeo. She probably is too young to have known any better but she doesn’t actually find out that she has to marry Paris until Act 3 Scene 5. This is after she had consummated her marriage with Romeo. So while it is entirely possible that her fear of being married to (the probably much older) Paris may have influenced her actions later in the play, it didn’t even factor into her decision to marry Romeo, let alone do the do with him. In Opal’s defence, it has been a while since she read the play. I do agree with her that Romeo is a piece of shit though.
> 
> And yes, I’m trying to use Shakespeare to distract you from all the typos and my absolutely total lack of knowledge about EMPs and electronics and computers and really just sciencey shit in general.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's quite a bit shorter than some of the others I've done but I can only write so much action and gratuitous violence before the desire to smash my laptop against the wall and never write anything ever again becomes overwhelming. Anyway, enjoy!

Korra winced.

“Sorry,” Asami said, looking up at Korra, eyebrows knitted in concern. She stroked one of Korra’s skinless knuckles with a calloused thumb.

Korra shook her head. “It’s okay.” She tried to keep her hands still but they wouldn’t stop shaking.

Asami smiled and placed a kiss on the back of Korra’s hand. “That hand’s finished,” she said.

Korra stared at her hands, willing them to stay still, while Asami tore another strip from the bed sheet. The metal bracelet strapped to her wrist was hurting like hell.

“You really don’t have to do this,” Korra said again, opening and closing her bandaged fist experimentally. She had said the same thing ten minutes earlier when Asami had begun wrapping her fists. Asami, like she had done ten minutes ago, flicked the hair out of her eyes and tutted. She had told Korra that if she wasn’t careful, the next time she punched someone, she’d be able to see the bone or break her hand or both. And how would Korra fuck her then?

Korra had stuck out her tongue.

“It’s no trouble,” Asami said, smiling. At least this time she’d been spared the lecture.

Asami knelt down in front of Korra and coiled the long swathe of fabric around her metal fingers. Korra held out her other hand and closed her eyes as Asami’s warm fingers gently held her wrist. She wrapped the bandage around her thumb, then her wrist, avoiding the flesh that had been rubbed raw by the explosive bracelet. She turned Korra’s hand over, spread her fingers, and began threading the bandage around the first of her bruised digits, back around her wrist, then onto the next one. And so on and so on. Korra found the rhythm, the feel of Asami’s fingers, and the soft rasping sound of the fabric oddly soothing and her hands slowly began to steady.

“Have I ever told you how glad I am, how _lucky_ I am, that I met you?” Korra asked as Asami bound her hand.

Asami didn’t look up at her but Korra caught a glimpse of her lip curling into an embarrassed smile. “I think you might have mentioned it once.”

“Well I am. Lucky, I mean. You’re …” Korra exhaled sharply. “I’m so lucky.”

“Yeah, imagine if you’d been cellmates with Opal. You’d have been screwing her instead of me this whole time.”

Korra laughed through her nose. “The horror.”

“I do think she has a thing for you though,” Asami said as she straightened a piece of the fabric that had gotten twisted.

Korra rolled her eyes. “She’d say Bolin’s name while we fucked, I just know it. I don’t think my fragile ego would be able to cope with that.”

Asami shrugged. “I think she’s only into him because you’re taken.”

“Shut up.”

“Have you ever said someone else’s name while having sex?”

“Yes, last week I said ‘Tom Selleck’ but I had my thighs wrapped around your head and you didn’t hear me.”

Asami huffed loudly. “Can you hold that bit for me?”

Several times Korra had to hold a piece of the fabric in place for Asami or tighten a bit that slipped. Asami’s clumsy metal fingers were next to useless and she wasn’t left-handed so her flesh and bone fingers were only slightly more dextrous. After a few failed attempts, Asami had to let Korra secure the last piece of the bandage herself, coiling it tightly behind her fingers.

When Asami had finished, Korra clenched her fists. Her knuckles stung a little, but she felt good, solid.

“Thank you,” Korra said. She hoped Asami knew she wasn’t just talking about wrapping her hands.

Asami placed her scarred hand over Korra’s and smiled a smile so deep and warm that Korra had no doubts that Asami had understood. In the dim light, Korra could just about make out only three of the multitude of pinkish burns that marked the back of Asami’s hand. Two small. One long and thin that arced over the back of her hand. These scars had no tragic backstory. Asami had a tough time even remembering how she got half of them. They were just the result of a lifetime of messing about with machinery.

Korra rubbed her eye with a knuckle and yawned, her split lip complaining loudly.

“You should’ve woken me earlier,” Asami said, sitting down next to her on the bed. “You could have gotten a nap.”

Korra exhaled deeply and shook herself. “No, no, I’m good. I’m good. Smack me in the face!”

Asami laughed. “I’m not going to smack you.”

“I just need revving up a bit,” Korra pouted. “Go on. I can take it.”

Asami placed her hand gently on Korra’s cheek and kissed the corner of her mouth, avoiding the bloody gash in her lip.

Korra threaded her fingers through Asami’s hair, resting her hand against the back of her neck and leant forwards so that their foreheads touched. She could almost feel Asami’s eyelashes fluttering.

“No matter what happens,” Korra whispered, closing her eyes, “I want you to know that I …”

“Shhh,” Asami whispered, placing a finger over Korra’s lips. “Tell me when we’re safe on Si Wong.”

Korra swallowed. She was half-contemplating telling Asami how she felt about her anyway, but instead she just nodded and drew Asami into a tight hug. “Deal.”

“It won’t be long now,” Asami said into the curve of Korra’s neck. “Do you want to try saying goodbye to Raava?”

“Huh?”

“Well …” Asami disentangled herself from Korra. “The EMP is going to mess with your implants. This might be the last time for a while that you’ll be able to talk to each other.”

“I think we’re out of range,” Korra said. Hearing Raava’s voice last night must have been some million-to-one alignment of the orbit or rotation of the planet or some fluke of solar radiation or something, Korra told herself.

“It wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Korra wasn’t so sure. The emptiness she felt when Raava didn’t answer was almost overwhelming. She would rather not try at all than face that disappointment again. She sighed, running a bandaged hand through her hair. It needed a wash, she decided.

Asami must have sensed her anxiety because Korra was pulled into a tight, warm hug. She closed her eyes and tried to forget everything for a second. She tried to just focus on the smell of Asami’s skin and the sound of her soft voice.

“It’s okay,” Asami whispered, combing her fingers through Korra’s hair the way she liked. “It’s okay.”

“How long now?” Korra asked, swallowing the lump in her throat and running her fingers up and down Asami’s back.

“Not long.”

“I’m really loving this hug, but is it alright if I pace up and down for a bit?” Korra asked.

“Sure.” Asami let Korra extricate herself from the embrace and pulled her legs up onto the bed as Korra began prowling the cell like a caged animal.

Korra rolled her shoulders, loosening up her stiff muscles. It wouldn’t be long now. She wondered what it would be like when the bomb went off. Would there be a wave of electric-blue energy or would there just an ear-piercing mechanical shriek? Would all the lights explode? Or would everything just go suddenly, silently dark?

“I was in jail a few times before this,” Korra said quietly, looking out through the cell’s pulsating energy barrier. “Not in prison. Not like this. Just, y’know, in custody. Never more than a day. It used to happen quite a lot during my early Cowboy days. Happened a few times back home too. It … it happened a _lot_ back home, now that I think about it. I suppose the first time was when I was eight. I was just beginning to realise that there was an entire world outside of the compound. I stole one of my dad’s snowmobiles one night, filled a rucksack full of chocolate and stuff, grabbed my dog, and we just made a break for it. I tried chasing the aurora over the ice fields. It was about, I dunno, a hundred degrees below freezing and I was in nothing but my coat and penguin pyjamas. If I hadn’t smashed through that eco-dome I’m pretty sure I would have died. I thought I’d been driving for days. Turned out it had only been about ten minutes. The police found me in the snow and took me to the station. I was convinced that I’d been arrested and was going to spend eighty years in prison or something. They didn’t even put me in a cell or anything. They did handcuff me to the chair after I kept trying to run off but they wrapped me up in an electric blanket and gave me a mug of hot chocolate. But still, I was absolutely convinced I was going to prison. I was waiting there, maybe thirty minutes before my dad showed up to collect me and Naga. That was the longest half an hour of my life. I thought I’d never see my family again.” Korra sighed and gnawed a thumbnail. “Can’t help but feel like that now. Like that scared, cold little kid who’d had just one delicious taste of freedom. Of life. Before having it all taken away from her. That little kid who thought she’d never see her family again.” Korra tightened the knotted sleeves around her waist and wiped something hot and wet from her cheek with the palm of her hand. She could’ve really done with a cigarette. “What about you?” she asked, attacking the other thumbnail now. “Did you have a criminal record? Before you became a war criminal, I mean? ... Asami? Asami, what’s wrong?!”

Korra rushed over to the bed where Asami was lying, clutching her artificial arm. Her breathing was ragged, she was shaking, the blood had drained from her face, and she was covered in a sheen of sweat. Korra knelt down next to the bed and stroked Asami’s face with panicked hands.

“Asami!” Korra whispered, kissing the tears from her cheeks. “Asami, listen to my voice. It’s all okay. It’s all okay. Remember what … remember what we did before. Just listen to my voice. Don’t fight it. Just listen to my voice.” Asami had her bottom lip between her teeth and was biting down, hard. Bubbles of blood-flecked saliva were collecting in the corners of her mouth. “Let go of your lip. Asami. Asami! Listen to me. It’s all going to be okay. Please, let go of your lip. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Korra eventually managed to coax Asami’s mouth open. She winced at the deep tooth marks gouged into Asami’s lip and rained kisses down on her. She wiped the sweat-slick hair from her forehead and climbed onto the bed next to her, pulling her into her arms.

“Not now,” Asami muttered, half-delirious and seemingly oblivious to Korra. “Not … now. Not …” Her face contorted and her breath caught in her throat, stopping her from speaking.

Asami’s bouts of phantom pain seemed to have been getting gradually easier to cope with over the last few weeks. But this. This was worse than Korra had ever seen it.

“Shhh, baby, it’s okay,” Korra whispered, holding Asami so tightly she was half-afraid she’d hurt her, though she doubted anything could hurt more than what she was already feeling. “I’ve got you.”

Korra had no idea how long she had been holding Asami when the sobs gradually softened enough for her to speak again. “It burns,” Asami gasped eventually, her tears hot on Korra’s neck. “Korra … it burns!”

“I know, baby. I know. It’s gonna be okay.” This was a good sign. When Asami was able to describe the pain, when she was even aware that Korra was there, it was a sign that the pain was beginning to ebb. A little.

“It burns … _fuck_ , I can feel it burning.”

Korra held Asami tighter and choked back tears of her own.

Snot, tears, and the remnants of makeup from several days ago running down her face, Asami reached out her quivering hand and grasped Korra’s. Korra felt the bones in her linen-bound hand grinding against each other in Asami’s grip.

Asami gasped loudly, drawing gulps of air into her lungs so large that Korra felt her chest shuddering.

“I’m sorry,” Asami sobbed breathlessly.

“Can you stand up?” Korra asked. They didn’t have long. It could be a matter of seconds, for all Korra knew.

Asami nodded, teeth gritted and clutching at Korra for support as she helped her up.

Her breathing was still coming in desperate, shuddering gasps and cold sweat was mixing with hot tears and running down her nose. Tentatively, Korra let go of Asami. She stood for a few seconds, swaying like a tree in the wind, before collapsing. Despite Korra’s protests, Asami brushed her aside and climbed back onto her feet.

“I’m fine,” Asami muttered, jaw clenched. “It’s fading now. It’s okay. I’m …” She hissed in pain, drawing air in through her teeth. “I’m ready.” Korra stood chewing her sore lip and her thumbnail, wishing that she could help Asami somehow.

Asami took a deep breath, wiped the sodden strands of hair out of her face, and squared her shoulders.

Outside their cell, Korra could hear inmates yelling and cursing. The tension that had been building yesterday and all through the night had not eased in the slightest.

As they waited, Asami rolled up her sleeves, and began checking the wiring in her arm that she had added yesterday. She yelped in surprise as Korra threw her arms around her neck and hugged her tightly. She wound her bandaged fingers into Asami’s hair and kissed her cheek, still pale and clammy.

Asami laughed breathlessly, almost as though it hurt, and hugged Korra back with her strong left arm. Korra felt the cold metal fingers of her right hand lightly stroke her shoulder.

Korra squeezed Asami tightly, wishing she had the courage to tell Asami she loved her.

“I know,” Asami said, her voice breaking.

Korra hadn’t said anything.

Like two shadows merged into one, they stood in that embrace until, without warning, there was a sound like thunder and everything went dark.

Korra fell to her knees, slipping through Asami’s arms as blood burst from her nose and white-hot fingernails dug through her skull, clawing their way through her brain. The metallic tang of blood filled her mouth and she couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe either.

For a spilt second, Korra thought she had awoken from a strange dream about a prison and a beautiful rebel fighter with a mechanical arm and mesmerising green eyes. For a split second, Korra thought she was back on-board Raava with a sandstorm raging outside and metal flashing out of the darkness. She could have sworn a pair of vicious eyes were glaring at her out of the shadows as the pain in her head got worse.

She felt a familiar, warm and worn hand on her cheek. The pain behind her eyes started to give a little and Zaheer’s cruel, mocking eyes dissolved. When her vision eventually cleared again, it was only in her left eye. Asami was kneeling in front of her. She was saying something. Korra narrowed her eyes at Asami’s lips and tried to work out what she was saying. It didn’t make sense. Maybe if everything would just stop fucking spinning …

She opened her mouth to say something but instead she coughed and a spray of blood dotted Asami’s cheek with red. Only it wasn’t red, Korra realised. It looked black. Like tar.

“… me? Can you hear me?” Asami’s voice eventually cut through the ringing in Korra’s ears.

Korra nodded.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

“Eye. Implants,” Korra managed to gasp. “Surge really fucking hurt. D- did it work?” she asked, wiping the blood from her nose.

Asami shrugged (a little facetiously, Korra thought) and gestured to the doorway. “You tell me.”

The flickering energy barrier that had cast their cell in a surreal artificial sunset every night since Korra’s first day in the prison was gone. Instead, the cell was bathed in a weak, green light that made the blood pouring from Korra’s nose look black. She couldn’t tell where this light was coming from, but she doubted it was electric. Korra guessed this was what passed for ‘emergency lighting’ in this shit heap of a prison.

Asami helped Korra to her feet and wiped the blood from her face. While she dabbed at her chin, Korra found herself strangely captivated by Asami’s eyes. With the green light seeping into the cell, her dark-ringed eyes were greener than Korra had thought it was possible for eyes to look.

“Your arm,” Korra eventually whispered when she’d managed to tear herself away. She reached out a hand and grasped Asami’s arm gently, holding her metal hand up to the slightly less impenetrable darkness. “Is it okay?”

“It’s fine,” Asami said, smiling and wiggling her fingers to demonstrate. Korra thought she looked a little proud. “It stung a little, but the surge protectors worked.” She planted a quick but deep kiss on Korra’s mouth. She’d forgotten Korra’s split, swollen lip, but Korra didn’t mind. The adrenaline was beginning to flood her veins and the pain was becoming a numb buzzing at the back of her mind.

Asami pulled something on her metal forearm and it made a sound like a loading shotgun. A piece of plastic flew away and an electric whining began to rise in pitch.

“Now … let’s go kick some arse, shall we?” Asami said, flashing Korra a grin as a ballet of lightning danced in her palm and between her metal fingers.

“Sounds perfect,” Korra said, half a crooked grin spreading across her face as she cracked her knuckles.

Outside the cell, all hell had broken loose. When she was twelve, Korra had once seen a pack of tiger seals tearing a young otter penguin to pieces. What the prisoners were doing to the handful of guards on duty wasn’t very far removed from that.

On the gantry overhead, someone yelled “ _Riot!_ ” at the top of her lungs and a guard landed with a dull _thud_ on the ground. Korra could have sworn she heard every single one of his bones breaking. If he wasn’t dead when he hit the floor, he certainly was by the time the hulking, panda-furred alien was through with him.

Everyone seemed too busy tearing the guards and each other to pieces to notice Korra and Asami as they made a break for the stairs up to the gantry.

There was a sudden burst of gunfire from the guard tower, like hail on a metal roof. All around them, prisoners fell to the floor, plumes of black blood erupting from legs and chests and heads. Korra and Asami kept running as sparks from ricocheting bullets illuminated the dark cellblock.

Once they reached the stairs they were safely out of the gunman’s line of sight and they took a moment to catch their breath.

“Are you okay?” Asami asked, a hand on Korra’s shoulder.

Another clatter of gunfire overhead drowned out her answer. Korra nodded. “You?”

“Yeah.”

“You ready?”

“Oh, hell yes!”

Korra, on a lower step than Asami, stood up on her tip toes and kissed her. She prayed to whoever was listening that it would not be the last time.

There was only one more volley of gunfire before Korra had smashed through the window of the guard tower.

For a fraction of second, illuminated in the last shudders of gunfire, it looked like a blue dragon-bird was bursting out of the gunman’s broken mouth and wrapping itself around Korra’s arm.

Korra rubbed the afterglow of the muzzle flash out of her eye.

Asami smiled to herself as Korra stepped over the guard’s prostrate body onto the gantry, her chest rising and falling rapidly and her bandaged fists covered with smudges of blood, black and glistening in the emergency lighting. Korra caught Asami smiling and wiped her nose on the back of her hand, acting cool to hide her embarrassment and inadvertently smearing blood across her cheek.

Beneath them in the swirling sea of inmates and guards, Korra caught a glimpse of Lin. She had the cable of a guard’s safety harness wrapped tightly around his neck, her jaw set in a statuesque snarl as his face turned dark and his eyes bulged. She scanned the crowd for Kai and Opal but there was no sign of them.

The blood was roaring in her ears and her chest hurt. Her head was still pounding from the electrical surge in her implants and she was blind in one eye. She felt amazing.

A gunshot tore through the cacophony of the riot making Korra’s ears ring. She shook her head and was about to lunge at the guard when, in a fluid, mesmerising movement, Asami spun, low and fast, kicked the gun out of the guard’s hand and slammed her metal palm into his chest. The force alone would have been enough to knock him off his feet but combined with the crackling lightning frothing in her hand that erupted through him, he was sent flying into the heavy metal door behind him. His smoking body seemed to almost fold over on itself as he slumped to the floor.

Korra’s mouth fell open. Asami clenched her fist, touched something on her forearm, and the flurry of sparks died down into a faint blue halo.

Asami must have heard Korra’s whispered “wow” because she flashed her the cockiest grin she had ever seen. Korra made a mental note to let this women fuck her brains out the very next chance they got.

The guard that Asami had just barbequed had been the last one on the gantry. Asami picked up his gun and threw it to Korra. She stuck it through the sleeves tied around her waist and wiped her bloodied hands on her thighs.

Asami dragged the guard’s unconscious body away from the door. Korra rubbed her hands together, rolled her shoulders, and grasped the rusty handles that were set deep into the metalwork of the vault-like door. Nothing happened. She spread her feet wider and ground her teeth. The door didn’t give.

Jinora was supposed to have unlocked all the doors. Had she fucked up? What were they supposed to do if they couldn’t even get out of their cell block?

Asami was visibly beginning to panic when Korra cried out, the muscles in her arms bulging and burning, and the door lurched open an inch, corroded metal screaming.

The door slid another inch or two and then stopped dead. Nearly exhausted, Korra gave the door another heave but it was no use.

“Can you fit through there?” she asked breathlessly.

Asami frowned for a second then nodded. “Let’s hope so.”

It was a tight squeeze and Korra thought Asami was going to have to take her arm off, but she managed to worm her way through. She almost fell over when she was finally through but she managed to steady herself. Asami brushed herself down and gestured to Korra to follow.

Korra didn’t move. She just standing there, looking back at the cell they were leaving behind.

“Korra!” Asami yelled. “Come on!”

“We’re gonna fucking do it!” Korra said almost to herself. She turned back to Asami and pushed herself through the doorway. It was a much tighter squeeze for Korra with her broader shoulders. “We’re actually gonna fucking do it,” Korra said, almost laughing, as she fell to the floor at Asami’s feet.

“Maybe,” Asami said, holding out a hand to Korra. “But there’s _a lot_ of prison between here and the hangar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd originally intended to do the whole prison riot/great escape in one chapter, but I wanted to actually get something posted sometime this century. I hope doing it in a few chapters works.  
> After over 80,000 words, I've finally managed to slip in a reference to Cluster! That was such a good comic. I can't believe it's finished already. If you like badass women of colour with robot arms breaking out of space prisons and fucking shit up then read Cluster. All eight issues are on comixology. (Someone tell Ed Brisson that I can accept payment for promoting his comic by cheque or paypal.)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hate writing fight scenes! I really hate writing fight scenes! I really hate writing fight scenes! 
> 
> This prison break is going to be the death of me. Once they escape (assuming they do escape) I'm going to do so much boring lounging in bed and talking about feelings and stargazing and kissing and handholding and shit.

Korra’s sides were hurting. She couldn’t feel her arms and every breath was a struggle.

She staggered and slumped against the wall as another guard in riot gear fell at her feet. She was beginning to wonder just how many guards were in this fucking prison. Too many, she decided as she glanced back down the corridor at the broken bodies they had left in their wake.

Asami had been right about there being a lot of prison to get through. It felt like they’d been going for hours. They had been through four, maybe five, of the heavy vault-like doors that led up to the hangar and they were still no closer.

Korra was exhausted.

“You need to catch your breath?” Asami asked as she examined the manual opening mechanism on the door. Her face was smudged with blood and her crackling arm smelt like burning metal and plastic.

Korra nodded and slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. She looked at her hands in a daze as though she were seeing them for the first time. The swathes of bed sheet Asami had bound her hands with were so soaked in blood, both hers and the guards’, that they looked black in the dim, green light. She tried to make her hands into fists and winced.

Asami kicked an unconscious man out of the way and crouched down in front of her. She smiled faintly and stroked Korra’s cheek with her fingertips. Korra closed her eyes and felt the first whisperings of sleep creep up on her. She jolted herself awake and tried to get up.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Asami said, pulling Korra back down. “You need a rest. Go to sleep if you want to.”

Korra shook her head. “No,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and tired. She didn’t try to get back up.

Asami made herself more comfortable, cross-legged opposite Korra. She took one of Korra’s bloodied hands in one of hers and gave her fingers a gentle, comforting squeeze. In the darkness, the pirouetting strands of energy in her other hand cast her face in a starlit glow and threw wildly dancing shadows across the walls, cutting through the green emergency lighting.

“Take your time. There’s no rush. If we’re lucky, you’ve already beaten the entire garrison half to death. Was … was it just me,” Asami said, doing her best to smile, “or did that last guy seem kinda drunk to you?” Korra nodded. “That was a really good idea of yours … persuading Kya to get her hooch confiscated.”

Asami’s smile faded and she hung her head.

As the blood coursing through her ears died down, an eerie silence descended. A graveyard silence, Korra thought before she could stop herself.

With Asami holding her hand in the dark, sharing the flickering light of the captured lightning in her metallic hand, Korra felt strangely at peace.

Something warm ran down her right cheek and Korra dabbed at it with tentative fingers. When she took her hand away, her fingertips were black and gleaming. Asami looked up and her eyes narrowed as she tried to peer through the darkness at her. Korra closed her eyes as Asami held her glowing hand up to Korra’s face.

A hiss of sympathy escaped through her teeth.

“The gash on your forehead has opened up again,” she explained. “It’s started bleeding. Must have been when you head-butted that guy a few doors ago.” Asami let go of Korra’s hand and carefully opened Korra’s right eye with her finger and thumb. “Shit,” Asami gasped. “There’s so much blood in your eye.”

Korra hadn’t noticed. The surge had left that eye blind.

Asami did her best to clean Korra’s face and eye but there wasn’t much she could do. Eventually, Korra batted her hand away and mumbled that she was fine. Looking far from convinced, Asami got back to her feet.

Korra rubbed at her sightless cybernetic eye and stretched her legs out in front of her.

Just as her strength was beginning to come back, Asami tapped her leg with a foot. “Here,” she said. Korra looked up. Asami was holding a fire extinguisher out to her. Korra gave her a perplexed look. “If you punch anything else your hands will fall off. Here,” she said again, giving the extinguisher a shake as though she were trying to goad a pet cat into playing with a new toy.

Korra climbed back onto her feet, pushed her hair out of her face with painful fingers, and took the extinguisher. It was heavier than it looked. She gave it an experimental swing and pouted.

“It’ll do, I suppose,” she said, wrapping the short rubber hose around her wrist to stop herself from losing her grip mid-swing.

“You’re welcome.” Asami took a deep breath and glanced at the heavy door blocking their path. “Shall I get this one?” she asked.

Korra gave a vague shrug.

Asami took that as a yes and rolled her shoulders. She gripped the rusty handwheel with her left hand and pulled. For a moment Korra thought it was stuck, but with the banshee scream of machinery that’s not very happy about being used, the door suddenly lurched open.

They stepped over the threshold and Asami began pulling the door closed when there was a shout and the sound of boots on metal echoed up from the way they had just come.

“Oh,” Asami groaned. “Shit.”

Harsh-white torchlight sliced through the green-tinged darkness at the far end of the corridor and three guards turned the corner. Their visors were cracked and one of them had blood streaming out of an ear. Another’s body armour was scorched by electricity. They had obviously already crossed paths with Korra and Asami.

“Get down,” Korra said, pushing Asami aside. All in one breath, she pulled the gun out of her knotted sleeves, pointed it at a cluster of pipes running along a wall near the guards, paused, and squeezed the trigger.

The recoil ripped through her arm and the smell of gunpowder stung her nose. There was a hollow _plang_ of metal striking metal, and a ball of light and heat consumed the guards in a deafening roar.

Korra dropped the gun and managed to pull the door shut before the fire reached them. Even so, the sudden wall of heat that hit her almost took her breath away.

“How the fuck did you make that shot?!” Asami asked at the top of her voice when the door was firmly shut. “You have no depth perception!” Korra couldn’t tell if she was shouting because the gunshot and explosion had fucked up Asami’s hearing like it had hers or whether it was the adrenaline.

Korra just grinned, picked up the fire extinguisher, and grabbed Asami’s hand.

Her ears had stopped ringing by the time they had made it to the next door.

“How many more?” Korra asked, breathless.

“Not many,” Asami said, unconvincingly.

“Shit,” Korra groaned.

“What? Seriously, it’s not that many.”

“Not that. Pema was making pepper spray for me yesterday. I completely forgot about it.”

“Damn. That would have been really useful.”

Korra swore at herself under her breath as Asami pulled the door open. Asami led her down a side passage and into a small cargo bay. Huge drums of fuel lined the walls on one side and there were small offices on the other.

“Here it is,” Asami said, as she ducked underneath a forklift. She tore the mesh door to the cargo elevator open and looked up the shaft. “All clear.”

“Wait,” Korra said, “the surge will have shut the elevator down.”

“I know.”

Korra looked at her hands. “I don’t think I can climb all the way up an elevator shaft.”

“It’ll only be bad for a little while,” Asami said. “The higher we go the less the prison’s spin will affect us. After six or seven levels, gravity will be about half what it is here. And there’s a maintenance ladder built into the side of the shaft. You’ll be fine.”

Korra sighed.

“S- stand where …. where you are!”

Korra turned around and had to stifle a laugh.

An orderly was standing in the doorway to the cargo bay’s toilets and was pointing a gun at them, seemingly oblivious to the ribbon of toilet paper dangling out of his trousers. He was shaking and visibly sweating. Korra and Asami looked at each other and silently agreed to just ignore him.

“I … I said …” The orderly stepped forwards and behind him, the door to the toilets swung closed with a bang. Startled, he pulled the trigger and a flurry of sparks erupted from the crate beside Asami’s head.

Korra advanced on him, and he stumbled backwards. She swung the fire extinguisher through the air and felt it connect with his face. The force of the blow catapulted him through the doorway into the toilets. Korra kicked the door open and followed him inside.

He tried crawling across the floor on his stomach like a spider that’s had most of its legs plucked and broken by a bored toddler. Black blood from his shattered nose shone in the darkness. Korra placed a foot on his back, pinning him down, and raised the extinguisher above her head.

He rolled over, eyes tightly clenched, and pointed something at her.

Korra cocked her head to one side in confusion and the red rage faded. She had thought he’d levelled his gun at her. But she could clearly see the gun on the floor near a cubicle. Throwing the extinguisher aside, she bent down and pried the small, curved piece of plastic out of his shaking fingers.

The door swung open and the toilets were illuminated by the flurry of blue sparks in Asami’s palm, reflected a hundred times over in the cracked mirrors that lined the walls on either side.

Korra held the communicator up to the light for Asami to see. She looked at it for a moment in confusion, then cautiously, she motioned to Korra to put the earpiece in.

_“Hello, Korra.”_

Korra didn’t say anything.

_“I know you can hear me, Korra. No need to be so obtuse. Is that the word? Hmm. It’s a good thing these communicators are built to withstand all kinds of shit, isn’t it?”_

Asami had dragged the quivering, pleading, bleeding orderly over to the sinks, pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt, and clamped him to a drainage pipe. She picked up the extinguisher and stood next to Korra protectively.

 _“That was very clever, Korra,”_ the voice said. _“I assume it was your girlfriend who orchestrated this whole thing. I thought at first that it was a solar flare or something like that. But I am assured by people paid to know more about these kinds of things than I am that the satellite’s shielding would have caught the brunt of any EMP from outside. I don’t know how you did it, but then Sato always has been full of surprises. I’m rambling. I’m sorry. What I really wanted to say was …”_ There was a sigh. _“I’ve completely lost my train of thought.”_

Asami leant back against a sink and looked at Korra in confusion. “What’s going on?” she mouthed.

Korra held up a finger and pushed the communicator further into her ear. Her ears were still ringing from the orderly’s panicked gunshot. She looked daggers at him and his whimpering stopped abruptly.

 _“Oh, yes,”_ the voice said. _“Fuck you, Korra! Fuck you! This is my fucking prison!”_

“Fuck you too, warden,” Korra said calmly.

Asami’s face turned pale.

A brassy laugh echoed through the communicator. _“What exactly was your plan? Hop in the garbage disposal while the lights were out and shoot yourselves into space?”_

A pit opened in Korra’s stomach and she found herself walking over to the sinks so that she was standing in front of Asami. She reached out to touch her. Her fingers met Asami’s arm and her hands stopped shaking a little and her voice felt strong enough to be able to say, “Something like that.”

 _“You know …”_ The warden sounded breathless, unhinged. _“You know why I didn’t put you in solitary or a … a holding cell last night? I should have done. That’s the protocol when an inmate’s being transferred. You know why I didn’t? I wanted you to be able to say goodbye. To Sato. You see … I’m … I’m not the villain here, Korra. I want you to know that. I want you to know that … that what I’m … what you’ve forced me to do … we’ve all had to do things we didn’t want to do, Korra. But it doesn’t make me a villain. Just like it doesn’t … doesn’t make you one.”_

Korra swallowed.

“What have you done?”

There was a pause followed by a muffled rustling as though someone with clumsy hands were fumbling with a microphone.

 _“Korra?”_ Korra felt her heart sink. _“Korra?”_ This wasn’t the warden’s voice. _“Oh, spirits … Korra, he’s …”_

“Opal?”

Asami stiffened and clapped a hand over her mouth.

 _“He’s … he’s got … I don’t know … ten … fifteen of us in the canteen and …”_ There was a breathless sob and a crackle of static.

_“Were you just going leave, Korra? Without saying goodbye to your friends?”_

Korra smashed her fist against the rim of a sink and yelled. There were no words. Just a primal anger.

“You fucking piece of shit! If you fuckin' touch th-”

 _“Shut up and listen, you fucking Cowboy … shhhhit!”_ he screamed into the communicator. Korra heard him take a breath and he was calm again. _“For every five minutes you are not in custody, one of your friends gets a bullet between her eyes. Starting_ _…”_ a gunshot screamed through the communicator making the earpiece screech and Korra wince. _“… now.”_

The communicator went dead.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank fuck this is over! I can't wait to get back to stupid space fluff!

Korra’s throat must have been sore by now, Asami thought. It seemed odd to think that at a time like this. But Asami couldn’t help it. She hadn’t stopped screaming until Asami had managed to pry the communicator out of her hands.

It was in pieces now, scattered across the bathroom, and Korra was sitting on the floor opposite Asami under a row of sinks. She had her knees drawn up to her chest and her head resting on her folded arms. Deathly, furiously, silent.

Strangely, Asami had preferred the screaming.

Asami opened her metal fist and a flower of electric sparks unfurled its petals bathing the toilets in a cold-blue twilight. She watched the tendrils of light writhing, then closed her fist and the room was plunged into a semi-darkness. She could still almost-feel the energy coursing through her arm and a few lingering sparks were escaping from between her clenched, metal fingers.

She opened her fist again. A cold-blue light. A flurry of electric fingers, grasping, clawing.

She closed her fist. Darkness, cold and suffocating.

Open. Closed. Open. Closed. Open.

Light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light.

“Could you stop that?”

Asami closed her fist. “Sorry.”

Asami swallowed, something which is surprisingly loud when everyone is too afraid to say anything.

The tiled floor was damp and cold. One of the pipes behind Asami was dripping, splashing water down her neck. For a second, she thought about going to fetch her spanner and fixing it.

She glanced at the orderly, still handcuffed to a pipe in the corner. The blood that had been streaming down his face from his broken nose was beginning to dry, turning a dull black in the green half-light.

Asami could smell something. Something beneath the coppery tang of blood, the orderly’s piss-soaked trousers, and the ammonia stench of bleach. Something burning.

She folded her arms around her legs and suddenly realised where the smell was coming from. The sleeve of her jumpsuit was singed around the cuff where sparks and long writhing tendrils of electricity had touched it. With tentative fingers, Asami felt further along her sleeve. The heat from her arm was tremendous. She almost scorched her fingers where a strand of wires in her forearm had burnt all the way through the fabric and melted what little remained of the silicone that had once served as synthetic skin.

She would have to use her improvised pulse weapon more sparingly, she decided.

Asami found four more smouldering holes in her sleeve. There were probably more. She twisted her head around as far as she could, wishing for her glasses and a good light. She must have left her glasses in their cell. She pulled on the sleeve of her jumpsuit, tearing with her teeth at the stitching where the sleeve met the shoulder. She felt the threads snapping. Working her fingers into the hole she’d made, she gave her sleeve a hard tug. Nothing happened. She tried again and heard something tear. One more pull, and the entire sleeve came away.

Korra looked up, surprised and confused.

Asami ripped what was left of the sleeve off her arm, shredding it into several pieces as she did so. She balled the scraps of coarse fabric up in her fist and threw them into one of the sinks behind Korra. She examined her arm as best she could in the gloom. She could smell burning metal and a lot of the makeshift wiring was glowing orange in the dark but there wasn’t anything she really needed to be concerned about.

Having decided that nothing would blow up for an hour or two if she was lucky, Asami leant back against the leaking pipe and sighed. She watched Korra and tried not to think about the hostages. She tried not to think about how many innocent (in the loosest definition of the word possible) people the warden had shot while they had been sitting in this cargo bay’s toilets. She tried not to wonder whether it had been Opal they’d heard being killed.

Without saying a word, Korra got to her feet, took the kind of deep breath you take before jumping off something you shouldn’t be jumping off, and headed for the door.

Asami staggered to her feet.

“Korra, stop!” Asami reached for her hand but Korra pulled away.

“He’s going to kill them, Asami.” Korra pushed the door to the toilets open, stopped, and took a shallow, ragged breath. “Opal’s probably dead already. Who knows how many others he has in there.”

“We don’t even know for certain that he has any hostages! You can’t r-”

“We know he has Opal!”

“No. We know he _had_ Opal!”

Korra shook her head and swallowed. She opened her mouth and a stifled croak came out. She tried again and whispered, “I have to turn myself in.”

“You can’t just … just give up!” Asami said, throwing wild shadows around the toilets with every fierce gesture of her flickering hand.

“I have to,” Korra said quietly. “She’s my friend.”

“She’s my friend too!” Asami shouted. She hadn’t meant to lose her temper. She just couldn’t believe that Korra would give in to this psycho! She couldn’t believe Korra would be so eager to leave her.

Korra turned to look at Asami, letting the door swing closed. She shook her head in disbelief.

“I … I can’t let him do this, Asami,” she said, her voice quavering slightly. She ran both her bloodied hands through her hair and opened her mouth but no words came out. “This,” she managed to say after several attempts, mismatched eyes wide and raw. “It’s … it’s all my fault. It’s all my fault!”

“No,” Asami said, closing the gap between them and gripping Korra’s shoulder. “No, it’s not!”

Korra looked up at her, her chest swelled and she set her jaw. “It is. And I have to do something.”

“He’ll kill them anyway! And you with them!”

“Probably. But I have to do something. For once … for once I have to do _something_ to fix my shit.”

Asami’s hand moved from Korra’s shoulder to her cheek. She stepped closer and had to fight the tears that were welling up. “Not like this,” she said, vehemently. “Not like this.”

“So you’re saying I should just … leave them there? Just let them die?”

“No, of course not!” Asami swallowed and shook her head, waiting for the lump in her throat to let her talk again. She chewed her lip as she stroked Korra’s cheek with her thumb. “I’m saying we need to be smart.”

“They need me!”

“So do I!” Asami’s voice was strained and a strange sense of déjà vu was nagging at her. Why could she taste peppermint tea in the back of her throat? Korra placed a bandaged hand over Asami’s, stroked her fingers, and leant into her touch as though it would be the last.

“I know,” she whispered. “But what choice do we have? What choice do _I_ have?”

“We’re not out of options yet. Shit! We have a hostage of our own! We need to be smart about this.” Asami wrapped her arms around Korra, hoping her mechanical arm wouldn’t burn her. She pulled her into a tight embrace as though it would be their last. “We need to be smart. We need a plan. We’re not giving up and we’re not just rushing in and getting everyone, including ourselves, shot.”

“But rushing in headlong and getting shot is kind of my speciality,” Korra said. Asami had her face buried in the curve of Korra’s neck but she liked to think that Korra had managed the faintest of smiles as she said that.

*

Bolin was sweating, which was odd because he could see the warden’s breath forming pale clouds in the air. He couldn’t breathe, which was strange because his respirator had been working perfectly the last time he had checked it. He fumbled at the collar of his uniform, trying to loosen it but it was no good.

The prisoners were scattered around the middle of the huge canteen. Some were standing, fists clenched, throats bared defiantly. Some were standing because they didn’t know what else to do and just hugged themselves, shivering in the cold. Most were sitting on the floor, huddling together in groups of two or three. None of them seemed half as afraid as Bolin but they didn’t dare speak. No one did.

A handful of guards surrounded the cluster of prisoners. Their hands were hovering over their weapons which they would whip out of their holsters at every drip of condensation echoing off the metal walls and every whisper of moving air and every little creak of the near-derelict prison. Not many of the guards had working guns. Only a handful had guns that didn’t rely on some kind of electricity but nearly all of them had nasty-looking nightsticks.

Bolin had lost his gun down a garbage chute when the riot broke out but, by some miracle, his holo-display was one of the few electronic devices in the entire prison that hadn’t been fried when everything went dark. So, instead of standing over the inmates, fingering his weapon menacingly, Bolin was standing next to the warden, watching the timer. Every five minutes, Bolin would tap the warden on the shoulder, nod, and clench his eyes tightly shut as another bullet was fired.

Bolin tried to find something positive to think about as he waited for the last minute and twenty-one seconds to tick away to nothing. No one had died of oxygen deprivation or frostbite yet so he figured the life support was still working. That was something. And despite his threat to Korra, the warden hadn’t actually killed anyone yet. That first gunshot had been fired into the ceiling, as had the next … shit, Bolin was losing count. Maybe five. Six? … No, the next _five_. Six in total. The clip must be empty now, Bolin thought. Unless he had one up the spout already.

“How much longer, son?”

Bolin started. “Oh, umm …” he glanced at the display on his wrist. “About twenty seconds, sir.”

The warden nodded. Bolin watched a bead of sweat, shining in the dark, run down the warden’s clammy forehead and cling to the end of his nose. He waited for it to drip to the floor or for the warden to wipe it away but neither happened. It just sat there, a shimmering wet jewel hanging from his nose. Had he not noticed? Bolin almost laughed but stopped himself.

“Five seconds, sir,” Bolin said, eyes fixed on the defiant droplet of sweat.

The warden nodded and his gun clicked. Bolin watched, fascinated, as the sweat droplet still clung there, refusing to fall no matter how much the warden nodded or paced or stamped his foot impatiently.

He glanced at Bolin. Bolin nodded, and the warden pointed the gun up at the ceiling again. The whole room breathed a collective sigh of relief as the gun clicked emptily several times. He hadn’t had one up the spout then.

The warden sighed a throaty growl and marched over to the nearest guard who handed him another clip. He was still making the strange reverberating sound in his throat as he threw his empty clip away and forced the new one in, his square nicotine-stained fingers clumsy in the dark. After a few tries the new clip clicked into place.

He paused, looking down at the gun in his hand. Bolin reset the timer and waited. He heard the warden sniff, take a few steps forwards, and the safety clicked off. This time, when the warden lifted the gun, he didn’t point it at the ceiling. He pushed a guard aside and squeezed the trigger. The gunshot echoed off the walls, illuminated crimson and black in the muzzle flash. A spatter of blood painted the wall and a prisoner fell sprawled out on the floor.

There was a moment of silence, like the seconds after a flash of lightning before the thunder rolls. Then the prisoners started screaming. Then some of them tried to make a run for it while others just curled up on the floor sobbing. The guards, just as shocked, pulled their guns out and forced the fleeing inmates to the ground, then corralled them like cattle into a corner.

The warden turned around calmly and sauntered back to Bolin, wiping something out of his eye. His face and collar were splashed with a dark spray and he smiled sadly.

“She forced my hand,” he said, touching Bolin’s shoulder. “I didn’t want to make good on my promise, but she left me no other choice.” He nodded as if to punctuate his point. It was only then that the droplet of sweat finally fell from the warden’s nose and splashed onto one of his meddles with an audible metallic _tingk_. He patted Bolin reassuringly before signalling to another guard and heading to the kitchen.

Bolin was sweating a cold sweat and he couldn’t breathe.

He pulled off his helmet with numb fingers and threw up over his boots.

*

They could hear the screams. Korra pulled the orderly to his feet, gritting her teeth and trying to block out the noise. The metal labyrinth of the prison did funny things to sound. The screams could be coming from next door or the other side of the prison. Something told her that the screams were echoing from the canteen down an air duct or gas pipe or something.

She hadn’t been able to find the keys to the handcuffs so she’d had to break the pipe. That hadn’t been very difficult. The pipework, like everything else in the prison was C-Corp crap and rapidly rusting away. She pushed the orderly forwards and picked the broken pipe up off the damp floor. It was a little over a foot long and, when she swung it experimentally, it whistled through the air.

Asami grabbed the boy by the scruff of his neck and pushed him through the door and waited. Most of the inmates were stuck in their own cellblocks, trapped behind heavy securely locked metal doors. The prisoners from Korra and Asami’s cellblock had free run of the prison now though and Korra was just as afraid of running into some of them as she was of running into guards.

There was silence on the other side of the bathroom door.

The coast was clear.

Korra slipped the pipe through the sleeves knotted around her waist and was about to follow Asami out of the toilets when she remembered the blood-spattered and dented fire extinguisher lying by one of the cubicles. She hefted it onto her shoulder and pushed the door open.

The orderly hadn’t made a run for it. He was smarter than he looked.

Asami poked the boy and put a finger to her lips. He nodded, understanding the implied threat of Asami’s stern arched eyebrows and penetrating stare. She pointed to the offices on the other side of the cargo bay and gave him a gentle shove.

They wove their way between the huge plastic crates and oil drums, the few stray sparks escaping from Asami’s clenched fist lighting their way.

Korra’s stomach was twisting itself into knots. She was certain that she would have thrown up if she’d eaten recently. He killed Opal. She tried not to let herself think it, but those three words kept circling around and around in her mind.

People had died because of her stupidity before. She could no longer picture the contorted grimace of the first person she’d killed, and she’d lost count of the number of bystanders she’d seen hurt while chasing bounties, but she hadn’t quite managed to block out the memory of the snowflakes settling on the cold-blue bodies of her parents. There’d been bounty hunts gone wrong, payments gone sour, mistaken identities, arguments with other Cowboys. And of course there were the thousands who had died when the portal had exploded. She couldn’t even begin to visualise that many people dead because of her.

People died. People make mistakes and people die. It can’t be helped.

So why did this feel so different?

Korra supposed that the truth was that this wasn’t different at all. This feeling was really all too familiar. It was just that now she didn’t have vast quantities of alcohol to drown it out or a spaceship to run away from it. And she’d allowed herself to care. She cared about Opal and Kai and Jinora and everyone else. She cared about all the poor saps she’d never gotten to know and she cared what Asami thought of her.

Asami had given so much fighting for something she believed in, something she cared about. So had Aang. She’d listened in rapture to both of their stories but it was only now, for the first time, Korra was beginning to understand what that must feel like.

Shouts echoed down one of the corridors and they froze. These weren’t the screams of terror Korra had heard, or thought she’s heard, in the bathroom. No, these were shouts were orders being barked. Guards barking orders. Their shouting got louder and louder and Korra heard the distinctive hissing sound of tranquilizer darts being fired. She grabbed Asami’s hand and ducked behind a crate, pulling the orderly with them.

A large and apparently empty jumpsuit ran into the cargo bay. Korra narrowed her eyes at it, wondering if she were concussed, but she soon realised it wasn’t empty at all. A huge, almost translucent figure lumbered towards them. A faint purple glow surrounded it and smoky tendrils danced around its shoulders. The jumpsuit was tattered and blood-stained and the creature’s hunched back was feathered with darts. The alien rushed blindly towards them, staggered groggily, knocking over stacks of crates left and right before coming to a standstill. It let out a deafening, almost plaintive roar despite the apparent lack of a mouth, and keeled over.

Three guards approached the unconscious alien cautiously. In the pulsating purple glow, Korra could see that one of their riot helmets’ visors was shattered and they all seemed to have serious burns on their uniforms.

They hadn’t noticed Korra and Asami or their quivering hostage yet. Korra held her breath and prayed that the darkness would hide them. She pressed herself back against the crate and squeezed Asami’s hand.

“Help me!”

The guards looked up, as surprised as Korra.

Asami leapt at the orderly but, despite being handcuffed and having already becoming very intimate with Korra’s fire extinguisher, he managed to evade her.

“Who’s there?” one of the guards barked, edging closer.

“Fucking help m-” The orderly fell backwards as his teeth scattered across the floor and Korra’s pipe whistled through the air.

“Identify yourself!” the guard barked again, though he didn’t come any closer.

Asami touched Korra’s shoulder lightly as though to say, “I’ve got your back,” and “be careful.”

“Come out w-” The fire extinguisher made an almost comical sound as it flew out of the darkness and bounced off his head. He fell backwards at the feet of the other two guards.

Korra liked to think that she could actually hear them crap themselves as Asami opened her mechanical hand and Korra swung her pipe at them.

*

Bolin was sweating. He couldn’t breathe. A darkly gleaming pool was creeping slowly across the floor and he couldn’t look away from it, no matter how hard he tried.

With shaking hands, he tried to put his helmet back on, hoping that the slightly tinted visor would block it out. It was no use. He couldn’t calm his hands enough to get it back on.

The pool was near his feet now. Another minute or so and he would be standing in it and it would mix with the vomit that was covering his boots. He thought about stepping to the side to avoid it, but his feet didn’t seem to be listening.

He looked at the holo-display screen strapped to his wrist. Just another two minutes. He wished that the damn display had gone dead like every other device in the prison. Why couldn’t it have been made by C-Corp like the rest of this shit heap of a prison? If it had been, then chances were that he wouldn’t have to watch the seconds drop away like this. ‘Fuck you, Future Industries,’ he thought bitterly. ‘Fuck you and your reliable electronics.’

Two minutes and fourteen seconds. Thirteen seconds. Twelve. Ten.

He checked the oxygen levels just so he wouldn’t have to watch the time slip away. He tried to connect to the prison’s data network even though he knew that it had gone dead like everything else. He checked the ambient temperature. He checked his body temperature. His heart rate. Air pressure. Oxygen levels again.

He even checked the date.

When he looked at the time again, there were only seven seconds left.

He glanced at the warden. Six seconds. The green emergency light, if you could call it ‘light’, made the warden look sick. Five seconds. Like something … Four … that had crawled out of its grave. Three. He was standing with his back to … Two … the room, staring at a notice board almost as if he didn’t have at least fifteen inmates held … One … hostage.

A bead of sweat dropped off Bolin’s chin and splashed through the screen as the timer reset, making the holo-display flicker. Four seconds and fifty nine seconds.

Bolin looked up at the warden again. He was sure that somehow he’d know that another five minutes was up. Bolin felt like fainting. But the warden didn’t move. He just stared at the notice board. It wasn’t as though he could even read anything in this darkness.

Bolin pulled his glove off with his teeth and wiped his mouth on his hand.

The dark pool was inches away from his feet. Bolin watched, horrified, rooted to the floor, the timer forgotten, as the darkness crept closer and closer. He screamed silently at himself to move. But he couldn’t.

A matter of millimetres from his boots, the pool stopped expanding.

He had to piss, he realised suddenly. He wondered if he’d be excused if he asked nicely.

Someone whispered something from where the prisoners were huddled.

“… be stupid. She doesn’t give a shit about us.”

“Shut up,” someone else hissed under their breath.

“She’s not going to help us …”

He hoped that wasn’t true. If he had to watch someone else die, Bolin was convinced he’d throw up. Again.

He wondered how many prisoners … no, he shouldn’t think of them as that … how many _people_ were left. He’d lost track of how many had been shot already. How many clips did they even have left now?

“How much longer?”

Bolin almost jumped out of his skin. “N- not long, sir,” he squeaked. He showed the warden the screen on his wrist. The timer was down to a little over two minutes.

“Who’s next?” the warden asked. He had washed the spatter of blood off his face and combed his thinning hair. He seemed remarkably in control of himself. That was somehow even more terrifying than the act he’d put on for Korra.

Bolin swallowed loudly. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. He tried not to look at anyone. At anything. If he looked at the warden, he might know he’d skipped five minutes. If he looked at one of the hostages then they might be the next one dragged to the warden’s feet. He wanted desperately to see if Opal was okay but didn’t dare in case the warden caught the direction of his gaze.

He searched for something to look at and his gaze landed on the now stagnant black pool on the floor. It would be getting bigger in … he checked the timer … in one minute and forty-eight seconds.

He felt sick.

*

Korra felt sick as she wiped the black stickiness off the pipe on her vest and stepped over the three unconscious (possibly unbreathing) guards. She swallowed a mouthful of saliva that tasted a lot like blood and bile and climbed up onto the metal staircase to the gantry where Asami was kneeling in front of an office door.

Asami kicked the door viciously making Korra jump.

“Mother! … Fucking! … Stupid! … Idiot! … Piece of fucking! …. Shit!” she shouted between blows to the huge door. She gave it another kick for good measure and slumped against it, throwing aside the twisted pieces of wire she’d been using as lock picks.

“What’s wrong?” Korra asked anxiously. “Is it stuck?”

Asami made a face at her, the look of scathing annoyance and sarcasm only half hidden in the dim light. Korra held up her bandaged hands in apologetic surrender.

Korra looked down at the cargo bay. There must be something she could use. The fire extinguisher was somewhere under the heap of unconscious guards. It had packed quite a wallop, but it was heavy and clumsy. More to the point though, Korra was unsure whether she had the strength to lift it, let alone smash a door down with it.

Asami was just as exhausted, clearly. She looked like death warmed up. Korra would have given anything to curl up with Asami on her bed, deep inside Raava. She was even considering sitting down next to Asami outside this stubborn door, wrapping her up in her arms, and closing her eyes for a bit. She would have given just about anything for that.

But every second she wasted was another dead inmate. Another dead friend. And Korra had few enough of those as it was.

Korra tapped Asami on the head.

“Move over, shit face.”

Asami looked up at her through heavy eyelids and wild hair. She fought a smile and muttered something that sounded a lot like “asshole” under her breath, and climbed to her feet.

Korra stood in front of the door, took a deep breath, held it, and imagined herself back in the ring. She found her balance, imagined the feeling of sand and sawdust under her feet, sweat and blood and tobacco on the air, and the cheering, chanting, and cursing of the Republic’s more bloodthirsty citizens.

As she released her breath, Korra lashed out and felt her foot connect with metal. There was a sound like thunder and rushing air as broken screws flew past Korra’s face and the door tore off its hinges, crashing into the office.

Asami narrowed her eyes at her as she stepped over the broken door. “I could have done that,” she muttered.

Korra was spared the embarrassment of attempting a witty reply as a squeal from somewhere inside the office and the sound of overturning furniture and tools scattering across the floor made her wince.

Korra stepped carefully over the crumpled door and squinted through the darkness. Asami opened her metal hand and the room was suddenly alive with light. What once had been an office had long ago become a workshop of some kind. Probably not by design either. It was much more likely a culmination of years of laziness, disorganization, fleeting bouts of inspiration and motivation and quite possibly a large amount of barely contained genius.

There were filing cabinets overflowing with tools and scraps of metal and circuit boards. Several desks were hidden under piles of embryonic fragments of machinery and the floor was littered with nuts and bolts and empty bottles.

Someone was crouching behind an overturned desk and pointing something small and plastic at them, hands shaking.

“Don’t come any closer! I’m warning you! What I hold in my hands is an incredibly powerful laser that could burn out your retinas if you even _thought_ about it for too long! The radioactive fallout alone from pulling this trigger would destroy a planet! And … and … I’m not afraid to use it! It’ll kill all of us and I’m n-”

“Varrick,” Asami said, slow and calmly, “that’s a stapler.”

“Aha! That’s what _you_ think! This is a craftily disguised weapon of mass destruction and …” Varrick looked at what he was holding and swallowed. “Oh. Umm. It’s … quite a big stapler?”

“Varrick …”

“Don’t come any closer! I’ll … I’ll … I’ll staple you!” Varrick squeezed his hand, gritting his teeth as though he half-expected a fiery bolt of lightning to come shooting out, and a tiny piece of twisted metal bounced to the floor.

Varrick gulped and dropped the stapler, throwing his hands into the air.

Asami took a step forwards and held a hand out to him.

“Let me dropkick him,” Korra suggested, her arms folded across her chest, utterly unimpressed.

Asami pretended not to hear her. “Varrick,” she whispered. “Varrick, it’s me.”

“I change sides!” he exclaimed shielding his eyes from the glare of Asami’s hand, still not giving any sign that he recognised them. “Unless … unless I was already on your side in which case I never even thought about changing sides! Not even for a … a second!”

“Varrick, it’s me. It’s Asami.”

Varrick’s sobbing stopped suddenly and he froze like a rabbit in headlights. He leapt to his feet making them both start in surprise.

“Asami!” Varrick grabbed her hand and shook it furiously, a little like an overzealous second-hand car salesman, any note of fear suddenly and completely gone. “How’ve you been, old chum? Old buddy?” He let go of her hand and stretched, his joints cracking loudly, and he stepped over the desk, lithe and gangly as a crane. He rubbed his hands together eagerly and chuckled to himself. “You know I woke up this morning, well, this afternoon, and you know what I thought?” Korra thought he wanted a reply but the second she opened her mouth he started talking again, fast and loud and excited, exactly like a second-hand car salesman. “I thought to myself, ‘What a wonderful day for a prison riot!’ And it really is, isn’t it?! I couldn’t have picked a better day for it! And you two lovely ladies have come to the right place! Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: _‘Varrick! You’re an imbecile! A coward! You tried to kill us with a stapler! You’re so drunk right now you could piss a vodka martini with three olives and a paper umbrella!’_ And you’d be right! But you know what else I am?!”

Korra didn’t open her mouth this time which was a shame because there was almost an entire minute of awkward silence as Varrick waited with baited breath for an answer. He looked back and forth between the two, hands spread, eyes filled with wild excitement.

“Umm … no?” Korra croaked at last.

“A goddamn genius!” He swept them aside and began ferretting through cabinets and boxes and drawers, piling up his inventions on the floor. “We’ve got a fire thing, a laser thing, a … I have no idea what this is. Looks dangerous though. A spud gun. No, that’s not right. Oh! A rocket thing. Taser thing. Gas thing. Another gas thing. This was from my gas phase. Stun thing. Roll of duct tape. No, wait … hmm, I guess you could kill someone with it. In the pile it goes! Oh, now this was meant to be a random portal generator! Didn’t work though. But in theory you could teleport someone into the sun! Wonderful way to go! Laser knife thing. Laser sword thing. Laser flail. I was feeling medieval that week. Grenade thing. Stabby thing. Extra stabby thing. Shooty stabby thing. So _that’s_ where all my paperclips went!”

He carried on like that for what felt like a very long time. Asami sighed wearily while Korra did her best to work out what even half the junk Varrick was unearthing was supposed to do. Most of it looked like it had been made out of tin cans and hairdryers and paperclips. She was sure one of the contraptions had once been a toaster.

“Varrick!” Asami snapped. He pulled his head out of a crate, alert like a dog that just caught a whiff of a squirrel. “This is … this is all great. Really. But we need …” Asami sighed. “Remember those blueprints you showed me a few months ago?” Varrick nodded despite looking utterly and totally confused. “I need them and any others you have.”

“You got it, pal.” Varrick plunged into a back room that might have been a cupboard and reappeared again, a big cardboard box in his arms. He tipped the contents out onto the floor before Asami could stop him. Sighing, Asami knelt down and began searching through the rolls of old paper.

Varrick’s hands wouldn’t keep still. He kept cracking his knuckles, snapping his fingers, steepling his fingers, clapping, and pissing Korra off to no end.

Korra took a deep breath, exhaustion and fear making it difficult to breathe.

“Asami,” she said desperately. Time was running out.

“Fuck yes!” Asami exclaimed, leaping to her feet, sweeping the mountains of junk off a desk and spreading the blueprints out, careful not to singe the paper. Asami squinted at the plans, frowning in concentration and frustration. Korra reached into the pocket of her jumpsuit and pulled out Asami’s glasses.

“You left them in the cell,” Korra said, handing them to her and trying to smile. Her split, bruised lip hurt too much to make the smile convincing.

“Thank you! I thought I’d lost them!” Asami put them on and leaned in to kiss Korra’s cheek. She paused for a second before her lips brushed her cheek, as though she were about to change her mind. She gave her a quick kiss and muttered “thank you” again.

“Sorry, they … might have gotten a little bent,” Korra said as she peered over Asami’s shoulder at the intricate diagrams and following her finger as it traced a thin, twisting line across the plan. “We don’t have to go down into the garbage compacter, do we?” Korra asked, joking to hide the panic bubbling away just below the surface.

“There’s a maintenance shaft running all the way from here to the kitchen,” Asami said, never taking her eyes off the blueprints. “The prison’s crawling with guards by now, not to mention bloodthirsty criminals. No offense, Korra. We can get to the canteen faster and safer this way.” Asami chuckled quietly to herself and glanced at Korra. “We were crawling down one of these things the first time I kissed you.”

“I remember,” Korra said quietly.

“I’m standing right here!” Varrick complained loudly, though he was having a hard time fighting his smile.

Asami turned back to the plan and began arguing with Varrick. They were debating the state of the water distribution network when Korra’s legs gave out. She collapsed into a suspiciously pungent-smelling swivel chair patched with duct tape and held her head in her hands. She wanted to cry, to sob like a toddler lost in a supermarket, but she couldn’t. If she could cry, maybe she wouldn’t feel so terrible. All she could do was grind her teeth, clench her eyes tightly shut and pray for tears as she screamed silently and painfully.

Her friends needed her. It had been selfish and stupid to think that she could just escape with Asami without having to pay the consequences. It had been stupid to think that no one would suffer.

This fucking monster had to pay … to suffer …

And it had to happen _now_ , before anyone else got hurt. Before anyone else paid the price of her selfishness.

Korra got to her feet, wiped her dry eyes, and took one last, long look at Asami.

*

Bolin looked like he was going to be sick. That meant another five minutes was up. He glanced at the warden and back at the holo-display on his wrist. Sweat was clinging to his forehead.

“Has anyone found Varrick yet?” the warden asked. There was no answer. Everyone in the canteen, including the handful of guards, winced as the warden slammed a fist on a table. “Where the fuck is that drunkard?! I want these lights back on!”

The girl on the floor with a hole in her forehead looked pale, almost ghostly in the green half-light. Her face was twisted into a permanent grimace of fear. So did the girl next to her.

Opal wished she knew their names. She thought that one of them had looked vaguely familiar but Opal had never strayed very far from her tight-knit circle of friends.

Opal wished that those empty, accusing eyes would stop staring at her. She hugged Kai tighter and stroked his hair soothingly.

Opal wished she could stop looking at her. She wished she could bring herself to move away from the slowly creeping pool of black blood. But she couldn’t.

Opal wished Pabu were there to comfort her, but the ferret had vanished as soon as the lights had gone out.

When the warden had grabbed her by the hair and pressed the communicator to her lips, she’d been convinced that he was going to kill her. She’d been convinced that she would end up like the girl staring at her emptily. But he hadn’t shot her. Was he saving her for something? Did he know that, short of having Asami in his grasp, his hand couldn’t be any stronger?

Despite the terror gripping her, despite everything, Opal didn’t feel the least bit like crying. She wondered if that was odd. Maybe it was just the adrenaline.

She should use that. If she could make it to the kitchen, maybe she could get a knife. She’d heard Pema say something earlier about pepper spray. But then what? It didn’t matter. She couldn’t move anyway.

She wondered what her mum would do.

Probably not rock herself backwards and forwards, trying not to piss herself, Opal thought bitterly.

She wondered if Korra would actually try to save them. Of course she would! Opal couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it.

She shouldn’t blame Korra for this.

If she thought hard enough, she could probably find a way to blame this all on herself.

As it turned out, it was much easier than she’d feared. If she hadn’t gotten Bolin’s ID card for Korra then this would not have happened. These … Opal had tried not to keep count of the gunshots and the darkness hid the most of the bodies but she hazarded a guess at three or four … These four people would still be alive if it hadn’t been for her.

Logic told her that it was the warden’s fault. He’d pulled the trigger. He’d, Opal assumed, arranged to have Korra transferred which had sparked all of this.

She rubbed her tired eyes and summoned the courage to look around. There were about seven of them huddled against the canteen’s servery counter, their sobs, prayers, and breaths coming in hushed, choked gasps.

“You okay?” she whispered.

Kai nodded and the droplets clinging to his eyelashes rolled down his cheeks. Opal missed his cheeky grin. “Yeah. Are you?”

Opal smiled because she didn’t know what else to do, and squeezed him tighter. “Yeah. We’re going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”

As if to challenge her promise, the warden got up from where he was sitting and marched over to Bolin. Opal felt a cold, sickly feeling wash over her skin.

The warden whispered something to Bolin and looked at the screen on his wrist. He frowned at Bolin and shook his head like a disappointed parent.

“You!” the warden shouted. At first Opal thought he was talking to her and she felt the taste of vomit creep into her mouth and her vision blurred. The feeling didn’t get much better when she realised that he was pointing his gun at the woman next to her. Opal didn’t know her name either. “Here. Come on, it won’t hurt.”

She didn’t budge and the warden’s patience was growing thin.

He marched over and grabbed her by the scruff of her jumpsuit. Opal thought about punching him in the groin, tearing his balls off with her teeth, tackling him to the floor and gouging out his eyes. But she didn’t move. She just held Kai and looked at the ceiling as the girl was dragged, sobbing, across the floor to the middle of the canteen.

Opal felt the tears begin to rise now. She forced herself to watch. She owed this girl that much at least.

She was forced to her knees and the warden stood behind her, barrel pointed at the back of her head. The girl swore, voice choked by tears. Not last words likely to go down in history, Opal thought.

“Stop.”

Opal looked at Bolin, shocked. He was standing off to the side, head hanging, fists clenched by his sides, voice faint and weak.

He looked up and swallowed audibly as a _click_ signalled the warden’s gun cocking.

“Stop!” he said again, clearer and louder.

The warden looked over his shoulder at him. He was too far away and it was too dark for Opal to properly make out his expression, but years later when she told this story over drinks in smoke-filled smugglers’ bars, she always said that the warden was shitting himself.

“What did you just say?”

“I …” Bolin’s voice broke. “I said … just … stop.”

“Whose side are you on, son?! There’s a war on! It’s us or them!”

Bolin took a step forwards, banging into one of the benches in the dark, but never taking his eyes off the warden.

“Put the gun down!” he said, trying to sound calm but falling short.

The warden’s arm fell to his side and Opal heard a sigh of ecstatic relief escape from the kneeling girl.

“We have a duty to the Empire!” The warden was practically quivering with rage. His medals and the sweat clinging to his face shimmered in the half-light. “Sometimes that means we have to … have to get our hands dirty. Do things that … that might seem hard to justify, but believe me, a time will come when all of this will be worth it. For the Empire and …”

The warden’s words caught in his throat. Opal doubted he even believed himself anymore.

He held the gun to the back of the girl’s head, his hand shaking. Almost simultaneously, Bolin lunged at a nearby guard, tore the gun from their holster, pointed it at the warden, and shoved the guard aside with his shoulder. The display on his wrist painted a sweeping arc of light through the air as he moved. “I am not going to stand by and let you kill another inno-”

“Innocent?! You are aware we’re in a prison, aren’t you?! No one in here is innocent!”

“Least of all us,” Bolin said quietly, advancing slowly on the warden.

Opal tried to look away. She tried but she couldn’t.

She held her breath. So did everyone else in the canteen. She felt Kai tense in her arms.

Opal almost screamed as the thunderclap of gunshots ripped through the air.

*

“Don’t be an idiot,” Asami snapped at Varrick. “No, look, this leads right to the pressure controls.” She tapped the paper with a fingertip authoritatively.

“Which rusted through nearly thirteen months ago!” Varrick insisted, pounding the desk. Asami frowned at him. “What? Don’t you trust me?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Need I remind you that it was me who fixed the radiation leak in the thing last year?”

“I fixed it.”

“But I found it.”

“You only found it because you caused the leak. You were using the acetylene tor-”

“I’m telling you, we built a new bypass in! There. Look!”

Varrick saw Asami chewing her lip out of the corner of his eye. He knew that look. She knew he was right, she was just refusing to admit it.

He didn’t say anything, and pretended to be deciphering a part of the blueprint that was damaged by a ring of coffee. He didn’t want to admit that he thought Asami’s plan would get them all killed. Well, not all of them. He had no intention of joining them. But it would get Asami killed, Korra killed, the warden, his hostages, and anyone else in the canteen.

But he didn’t say anything.

As Asami pored over a set of plans for the canteen’s water supply, Varrick slipped a hand into his jacket. He smiled quietly to himself as his fingers closed around cold, smooth metal. Pulling it out of his pocket stealthily so Asami wouldn’t notice, Varrick turned his back, unscrewed the cap of the flask and gulped down a mouthful of the contents. It was a very special cocktail of his own invention called ‘Whatever Alcohol Is Lying Around’.

He turned back and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, his nerves a little steadier now.

Asami didn’t even look at him, she just held out a hand. Varrick clutched the flask possessively to his chest then gave in and handed it to her with a defeated sigh.

As she drained the flask, Varrick watched, transfixed with horror. It was like watching his own lifeblood being emptied.

Asami wiped her mouth on her sleeve and handed the flask back to him with not even a thank you.

“Here,” Asami said, pointing at the plan. “We’ll crawl through this opening and get to the pumps that way. I’ll need your tool belt and some kind of …” she sucked air in through her teeth. “A saw would get it done quickly. It doesn’t need to be neat. I’ll need something to build up the charge in my arm.”

Varrick sniffed and looked inquisitively at the lightning-blue sparks that were begging to escape from Asami’s closed fist. It looked like her arm was being held together with paper clips and chewing gum. Nonetheless, he was impressed. She was definitely her father’s daughter. In fact, Varrick doubted that Hiroshi would have been able to create something like that in such circumstances.

Varrick tugged his moustache thoughtfully. “You’ll have to … What?”

The blood had drained from Asami’s face and her lip was quivering.

“Where …” Her voice broke as tears crept into her eyes, gleaming in the light of the electric sparks dancing in her hand. She shook her head in disbelief and looked to the door and back again. “Where did Korra go?”

“She was right …” Varrick pointed vaguely at an empty, threadbare chair.

*

“Korra?!” Asami pushed past Varrick, nearly shoving him into a filing cabinet, and ran out of the office. She raced down the rickety metal staircase, a trail of blue sparks following her as she ran. Hot tears were stinging her cheeks and she could barely see.

She stopped, almost falling to her knees and wiped her eyes. One of the guards who were lying in a broken heap next to the unconscious alien was missing most of her riot gear.

“Is she there?” Varrick called down from the gantry. “I think … I think she took a welding torch or something and …”

Asami didn’t hear him. She ran through the cargo bay and down one of the dark corridors, barely conscious of where she was going.

“Korra?!” she shouted, the sound of her boots ricocheting off the metal floor and her breath rattling in her chest.

She’d left her. Asami ran for as long as she could until her lungs were burning and her side was hurting. Why did everyone always leave her?

“Korra! Korra, don’t … don’t do this!” she shouted, breathlessly. “Don’t … don’t you dare leave me!”

She listened, straining to hear over the thunderous heartbeat in her ears, but all that came back down the corridor were the echoes of her own plaintive shouts. She fell to her knees, struck the floor with her metal fist, and screamed.

“KORRA!”

*

Korra fumbled at the strap on her shoulder. She couldn’t get comfortable. The guard she’d taken the riot gear from seemed to be too big or too small in all the wrong places.

She hadn’t taken the helmet. With only one working eye, Korra figured her vision was limited enough as it was. And if there was anything she knew how to do, it was get hit on the head.

Every creak and groan of the corroding prison sent a shock down her spine. Her injured hands shook with adrenaline and fear and she tried to time every stride with her breathing.

In, out.

Left, right.

Her breathing was far too ragged and her muscles were aching far too much to actually be in synch, but just the attempt at rhythm was slightly calming.

She prayed she was going in the right direction.

The riot gear smelt of sweat and blood and burnt plastic. It wasn’t just the smell and the heat of the gear that was bothering her. It was ridiculously heavy. Korra staggered to a halt and, with shaking hands, she undid the straps holding the chest and back plates in place. She undid some more straps and buckles and the chest plate was joined by knee pads and thigh and shin protectors on the floor. She had second thoughts about leaving the knee pads behind, put them back on, and carried on limping down the corridor.

Now all she had of the stolen riot gear were small dented shoulder pads – the incredibly uncomfortable elasticated straps of which ran across her collarbones, shoulder blades, and under her arms, making her itch – one elbow pad, the torn sleeves of the guard’s insulated under armour held together with a complex webbing of plastic straps and duct tape covering her arms, scuffed and burnt forearm guards that didn’t fit properly, heavy gloves wrapped in duct tape, and a utility belt.

Apart from the chest plate, the utility belt was the heaviest thing she’d taken. She couldn’t get rid of it though. She was far too much of a nerd to not wear a _fricking utility belt!_

She had thought about taking some of Varrick’s weapons for all of three seconds before deciding against it. The last thing she needed was one of his contraptions blowing up in her hands and killing her. Asami would never forgive her if she did that.

Instead she had picked up a welding torch which, when Korra shook it, sounded like it still was about half full of … whatever welding torches use for fuel. She’d also grabbed a fistful of small plastic tubes that she’d seen Asami use a few times before. When you broke the seal on them, a chemical inside them reacted almost instantaneously with the oxygen in the air, making an area of about three feet completely unbreathable for a few minutes. They were used to quell electrical fires but Korra thought that they would probably be just as effective shoved into someone’s mouth.

She still had her metal pipe, taped to her stolen utility belt and whacking her in the thigh as she walked, or rather limped, down the corridor. Dragging the fire extinguisher along behind her as well, she was about as ready for the warden as she was ever going to be.

Now that she had the pair of thick, padded, duct tape-wrapped gloves on, Korra’s hands had stopped hurting. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Korra had stopped noticing the pain in her hands a while ago. What had once been an overwhelming cacophony of pain was now just a dull roar, like a passing train, deep underground. Korra could cope with that. In fact, considering all the shit she’d been through in the last hour alone, she was doing pretty well.

Still, she’d would have killed for a handful of painkillers and a glass of ice-cold water. Well, maybe not _killed_.

Korra tripped on something in the shadows and crashed to the floor, instinctively holding her hands out to break the fall. The pain burning through her hands was excruciating and, as she staggered slowly to her feet, she decided that, yes, she would kill for a handful of painkillers and a glass of water.

Korra laughed to herself, breathlessly and through pain-gritted teeth.

“Glass of water?” she whispered to herself. “Not a bottle of whiskey? That’s what they call ‘character growth’, Korra.” Of course, it went without saying that, in this alcohol-free hypothetical situation, there would be a very attractive and very naked recently liberated mechanic to help her forget the pain.

Leaving Asami behind had hurt more than her bloodied hands. But she’d had no choice. Korra grit her teeth, ignored the pain, and kept going, staggering almost drunkenly through the dark.

Korra was soon sweating. What little of the riot gear she was still wearing was heavy, so were her improvised weapons, and it felt like she’d been walking for ever.

Broken glass crunched beneath her feet and, for a second, she wasn’t on a rusting space station, dripping blood and on her way to eviscerate a prison warden. For a second, she was six years old and back home, stepping outside after a heavy snowfall. Naga was by her side, her hot breath fogging in the air, and the thin layer of ice on the snow crunching like … like broken glass.

Korra passed the laundry. She almost didn’t notice. For the first time in however long she had been stuck there, the laundry was silent. Silent and cold.

She stepped inside, turning exaggeratedly as she checked quickly for guards, awkwardly aware of her literal blind spot.

“Aren’t you a bit short to be a storm trooper?”

Korra almost leapt out of her stolen riot gear. She squeezed the trigger of the torch and a roaring knife of fire erupted from the nozzle, and pointed it in the direction of the voice.

“Stay where you are!” Korra hissed. “Don’t move.”

“Ugh! Point that somewhere else!”

Korra squinted into the fire-illuminated darkness.

“Jinora?!”

She dropped the torch and the extinguisher and, before Jinora knew what had happened, Korra had caught her up in a rib-crushing hug. Jinora squealed and wriggled a bit before eventually giving in and patting Korra half-heartedly on the back. Korra sniffed and blinked back tears.

“I’m so glad you’re okay! You are okay, aren’t you?” Korra gripped Jinora by the shoulders and peered at her through the darkness.

Jinora sighed. “I’m okay. Can you let go of me now?” Korra let go of Jinora reluctantly.

“Where’s everyone else? Opal’s in the canteen. Or she was. Is everyone else okay?”

“Kai and Opal were taken into the canteen. We were trying to get to the library. We figured it’d be the last place to be looted. I, uh, I was checking ahead and … they just came out of nowhere. They grabbed them but I … I hid in a drier.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Korra, it’s not …”

“It’s all my fault.”

“Korra …” Jinora lunged at Korra, wrapped her thin arms around her tender ribs and buried her face in Korra’s chest. “You have to help them!”

Korra swallowed and ran a gloved hand over Jinora’s hair. A peeling piece of duct tape got stuck in Jinora’s hair and Korra tried to extricate herself without Jinora noticing. “I will. I swear I will. Nothing will happen to them.”

If only she believed herself.

Jinora sniffed and looked up at her. “Where’s Asami? Did something …?”

“She’s fine,” Korra said, disentangling Jinora’s arms from around her. Korra turned away from her and fumbled in the green-tinged dark for the welding torch and the extinguisher.

“Oh,” Jinora wiped her eyes and nose on the back of her hand, looking like an upset eight year old in the darkness. “Okay.”

Improvised weapons in hand, Korra straightened up, every joint in her body screaming and scraping like rusty hinges.

“She’s fine,” Korra said again in a tone that didn’t brook any more questions. “Hopefully she’ll stay out of trouble long enough for me to fix this mess I’ve made. Then we’ll be gone.” Korra strode into the corridor, stopped, and turned back to Jinora. “You … you can come with us if you want. You and Kai and Opal and … and everyone else. I care about all of you and … I’d hate for something to happen to you after we’ve gone.”

She limped down the corridor before Jinora could answer.

Faint, light footsteps followed her and she soon felt a tight grip on her arm. Jinora pulled Korra to a standstill.

“Korra … you can’t save them on your own.”

Korra thought for a moment.

“I can.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

“You can’t.” Jinora was whispering now. They were still a little way from the canteen but there was something about the dark, cold corridors that triggered some deep-seated primal instinct of self-preservation that meant you had no choice but to whisper. “If you go in there on your own, you’re going to die.” Korra pushed her bottom lip up and shrugged. Jinora thumped her square in her chest. Winded slightly, Korra regretted taking the chest plate off.

“Okay, fine. You can help. But you’re not coming in with me and you have to promise me that you won’t die. Pema will kill me if you die.”

“Okay. I’ll … I’ll be your back up or something.” Jinora nodded towards Korra’s welding torch and fire extinguisher. “You got, umm, any weapons for me?”

“Umm,” Korra ferreted through the various pouches on her utility belt. “Stick of gum?”

Jinora sighed, loudly and wearily, ignoring the foil-wrapped piece of chewing gum Korra was offering her. “Good thing I’m a pacifist.”

“Hey,” Korra said defensively. “You can choke on gum. It’s very dangerous.”

Jinora refused the gum again and they walked in silence down the corridor. Eventually Jinora broke the silence.

“We’re going to stay,” she said quietly.

“Huh?” Korra said, mouth full of chewing gum.

“You said we could go with you and Asami. We talked about it. All of us. And we’ve decided to stay here. And not just because we don’t want to die on Si Wong.”

“Oh.” Korra’s heart fell a little.

“Yeah. We, umm, we realised that we’re kind of in an amazing position here,” Jinora said, quietly but confidently. “We’re right in the middle of the Empire. We’ve got weapons, food, a ton of people who don’t think very highly of Kuvira. Shit, Asami and Kai managed to build an electromagnetic pulse bomb just out of junk that was lying around here. I don’t think anyone even knows there’s been a riot here! The surge must have knocked out the long-range communicators. We could turn this place into some kind of, I don’t know, it sounds cheesy. This could be a base. Admittedly a very rusty, disgusting base. We could really make a difference, maybe even turn the tide of the war.”

“Maybe. Good luck,” Korra said, and she meant it.

“When you’ve found your ship,” Jinora said, a distinct hint of hopefulness in her voice, “you can come back. Help us fight Kuvira.”

“Thanks,” Korra said, quietly. She felt ashamed, cowardly, but the last thing she wanted was to fight Kuvira. And she knew Asami felt the same way.

Jinora must have detected the emptiness of Korra’s voice. “’Thanks, but no thanks’. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

Korra was quiet for a moment. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” Jinora said, though Korra thought she sounded a little disappointed. “It won’t mean much if Kai and Opal are …”

Korra put a hand out, signalling Jinora to be quiet.

 _What is it?_ Jinora’s voice asked in Korra’s head.

Korra pointed to the canteen doors.

They crouched down a few feet from them, backs to the cold wall.

“Can you …” Korra made a vague hand gesture around her forehead, “like mind-zap people?”

Jinora scowled at her. “No, I can’t ‘mind-zap’ people. I could, I dunno, try screaming? In his head.”

Korra nodded. “When I give the signal, you scream as loud as you can in the warden’s head. Then as soon as it’s safe, tell the hostages to get out.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Let’s do this.”

“Korra, wait.” Jinora leant up and kissed Korra on the cheek. “Good luck.”

Korra smiled and waved Jinora aside. She clipped the welding torch to a strap on her belt and waited until Jinora was out of sight behind a long out of use vending machine and, with one fluid motion, she smashed the fire extinguisher into the doors. They’d been locked but they were flimsy and splintered like kindling.

Swinging the extinguisher, Korra knocked two guards to the ground before they even had a chance to register what had happened. Before they’d even fallen, Korra slid to her knees, still swinging the extinguisher in a vicious arc, and knocked their legs out from under them. They crashed to the ground and, moving with the speed and grace of water, Korra was on her feet and running towards the next guard. He reached for his gun and Korra aimed the nozzle at his exposed face and unleased a jet of water.

Surprised, he dropped his gun. Korra swung the extinguisher one last time, letting go of the rubber hose midway through the swing and it sailed through the air, smashing into the guards face. Korra didn’t pause for breath. Her broken, painful body was flooded with endorphins and adrenaline and nothing could stop her.

Korra dodged a blow from a nightstick, jumped off the edge of a table, spun through the air, and her foot connected with a neck. She landed heavily and something in her foot snapped. Her pipe lashed out at a shin and a foot and blocked another nightstick.

It was dark, she only had one working eye, and she was trying not to stay still for too long, but she thought she was pinned between just three guards. At least one of them had a riot shield. Korra broke a hand with her pipe and caught a nightstick in her gloved hand. She yanked it towards her and hit the attached arm with the pipe. She felt bone break and heard a cry of pain.

She wanted desperately to see if Opal was okay but didn’t dare.

Still grasping his nightstick, she swung the guard to the side and he crashed into one of his comrades. Korra caught a blur of motion in her peripheral vision, and ducked to the side. The edge of a riot shield hit her in the arm. The shoulder pad caught the brunt of the blow but that was the arm without the elbow pad and she felt icy pain shoot up her arm.

Korra grunted and gripped the edge of the shield, pulling it down as she lashed out with the pipe again and again and again. A warm, wet spray doused her face but she kept going until the shield and the guard behind it fell limply to the floor.

Korra had a moment to catch her breath. She dropped the pipe and it made a hollow, almost musical sound as it hit the floor. She wiped her face on the back of her gloved hand and looked around.

There were maybe four more guards nearby and another … maybe three or four … were on the other side of the canteen, near the servery. She thought she could just about make out the warden as well. Korra wondered for a moment why no one had tried shooting at her yet.

The four closest guards were advancing on her, slowly, cautiously. She didn’t have the advantage of surprise anymore.

Korra pulled the welding torch out of her belt and fished through the pouches.

“Let them go,” she said, still searching through the utility belt. Her voice was tired and hoarse and she wasn’t sure the warden had heard her.

“Let them go?” she heard him say. “Why? Is this you surrendering?”

“It’s as close as you’ll get,” Korra said. She wasn't great at trash talking or quips while fighting. She was playing for time. She needed the guards to get closer.

She found what she was looking for and dropped a fistful of small capsules onto the floor. She glanced up at the approaching guards. They weren’t wearing respirators. Good. She waited until they were a few paces away, then took a deep, lung-burning breath, and stepped on the capsules. She heard them snap under her boot and a faint hissing filled the air. She hoped her nose was as full of dried blood as it felt.

For a few seconds nothing happened, the guards stood waiting for her to move, while she stood waiting for them to move. Then the guard closest to Korra gasped, made a choked coughing noise, and fell to her knees, clawing at her throat.

Korra leapt forwards, lungs screaming at her to take another breath. In mid-air, she struck the kneeling guard in the face with her foot. Landing, she rammed her padded elbow into a throat, a gloved fist into stomach, twisted like a ballerina, and shoved her heel into a groin. The guards didn’t put up much of a fight as the chemicals in the capsules tore the oxygen from their lungs.

Korra held her breath for as long as she could, striding down between the tables, heading for the servery. She kept squeezing the trigger of the welding torch, waiting for the flame to erupt from the nozzle. Just as she was about to risk taking a breath, the torch roared into life. Relieved, Korra filled her lungs and broke into a run. She could see the warden. Her blood turned to fire and she ran faster, jaw set and ignoring the pain in her foot.

A gunshot tore through the air and Korra leapt down under a table.

As the bullets ricocheted off the metal floor and walls, Korra suddenly realised that she hadn’t told Jinora what the ‘signal’ was. Korra sighed and tried counting the bullets. They were being fired too quickly and the echoes made it hard to judge just how many were being fired at a time. Plus she had no idea how many rounds the guns held anyway.

Korra closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and was a little disappointed when her life didn’t flash before her eyes. She tried to remember her frozen home world. She tried to remember finding Raava in that scrap yard, her first fistfight, her first drink, the stars from Raava’s cockpit, her first time with Mako, her last time with Mako. She tried to remember the smell of Asami’s skin and her hair and her smile. Everything was a vague blur. All she was really aware of was the pain in her foot and her hands and the cold floor.

She took another deep breath, gripped the torch tightly and, as the spray of bullets subsided, she slid out from under the table. She spat out the gum she’d forgotten she’d been chewing and yelled, “Jinora! This is the signal!”

She leapt up onto a table top and broke into a bounding run towards the warden and his hostages. A guttural scream cut through the sound of gunshots and the warden fell to his knees, clutching at his head. The gunshots stopped entirely and, as she ran full tilt across the tables, Korra was half-aware of people going in the opposite direction, heading for the doors she’d smashed in. Jinora must have been able to tell the hostages to make a break for it.

Korra vaulted through the air, fists clenched, knee thrust forwards and aimed at the guard’s throat. She struck his chin instead and sent him flying back against the servery counter.

The warden was writhing on the floor in a pool of something shimmering and black.

Korra dodged a blow from a guard, sidestepping him effortlessly and pointing the welding torch at his chest. There was a sound like someone hitting a pillow and his uniform burst into flames.

His scream gurgled in his throat as he dropped to the floor, rolling over and over.

After that, Korra made short work of the other guards.

She was standing over the warden, quivering and bleeding out of his nose. Just what had Jinora done to him?

“Korra!”

Korra dropped the welding torch and ran towards Opal, falling to her knees in front of her and wrapping her arms around her waist and burying her face in her stomach. Tears of relief welled up into her eyes and she didn’t trust herself to talk.

“I’m so sorry,” Korra managed to whisper at last.

She felt Opal’s soft fingers in her matted hair and let the pent up tears roll down her cheeks.

“It’s okay,” Opal whispered.

“I thought he’d killed you.” Korra was dimly aware of some of the guards starting to get back up but she didn’t let go of Opal, she couldn’t let go. “Did he hurt you?”

“No. No, he shot a few people but … he was bluffing at first. Then he started …” Opal’s voice tailed off. “More of us would have been killed if it hadn’t been for Bo. He pulled a gun on the warden. Told him to stop. The warden shot him.” Korra looked up, shocked. “He’s okay. One got him in the shoulder. The riot gear saved him from the other two bullets. He got out with the others when … was that Jinora’s voice we heard?”

“Long story,” Korra laughed, almost sobbed, into Opal’s jumpsuit. “Kai?”

“He’s okay. Shaken, like the rest of us. But okay.” There was a moment of silence. “Korra, we should get out of here.” Korra nodded and Opal helped her to her feet. She felt so tired. “Where’s Asami?”

“She’s fine.”

They were halfway to the doors when the sound of a gun cocking made them freeze.

“Don’t move.”

Korra turned around, her arm still around Opal’s shoulders for support. The warden took a tentative step forwards.

Korra sighed. “It’s over,” she said.

“You don’t just get to walk out of here!” he shouted, a tear black with blood running down the side of his nose.

“No, I’m going to limp out of here.”

“I’ll kill you right wh-“

The warden’s voice was drowned out by a sudden rushing sound. At first Korra thought she had a concussion but Opal could hear it too. She was looking up at the ceiling, a confused frown creasing her forehead.

“Sounds like …” Opal said quietly.

Something dripped onto Korra’s face. For a second, she wondered if it was raining. The roaring reached a crescendo and was joined by the sound of splintering metal and bending plasterboard. The warden looked at them in confusion, shook his head like a dog bothered by a bee, and pointed the gun at her again.

Korra was just about to push Opal aside when the ceiling collapsed and a wall of water fell on the warden, filling the canteen and knocking everyone off their feet.

Korra’s mouth and nose were full of water and she lost her hold on Opal. Buffeted by the sudden rush of freezing water, she hit her head on something hard and stars flashed before her eye.

Spluttering for air, she managed to stagger to her feet as the water stopped pouring from the enormous hole in the ceiling. She wiped the sodden hair out of her eye and looked around anxiously for Opal. She soon found her, shivering and spluttering under a table.

“Opal,” Korra said breathlessly. “Get out of here.” Opal nodded and splashed towards the open doors where Korra could just about make out Jinora and Kai shaped shadows.

Korra and Opal weren’t the only ones back on their feet. A few of the guards were staggering around the canteen, looking for weapons and missing teeth. Korra clenched her fists, spread her legs, and waited for them.

There was a sound like the crackle of an untuned radio and Korra saw something drop from the hole in the ceiling, lithe and deadly like a jungle predator, landing with a splash in the water.

Asami straightened up and opened her clenched metal fist. The violently writhing tongues of electric fire illuminated her face and the whites of her eyes seemed almost to be suffused with the lightning she was wielding.

A guard stamped through the water towards her like a blundering rhinoceros and Asami spun, clamped her sparking hand to his face, kicked his feet out from under him, and smashed his head down into the ankle-deep water covering the floor. Electricity danced like a halo around his head, water sizzled, and the smell of burning flesh filled the room. Eventually his convulsions stopped and Asami got to her feet.

Her hair had fallen over her eyes and she was breathing heavily as electric-blue sparks climbed up her arm. No one else dared move.

Korra waded through the water towards the warden. He was lying on his back in the dark water. Korra gave him a kick. He coughed up a mouthful of water, swore, and rolled over. He looked up at her pleadingly.

“Please …” he spluttered. “Please. I … I surrender!”

“You surrender?” Korra said, voice cold and head cocked to one side. “This isn’t war. This is prison." And then, with a smirk, "Perhaps you'd like to file a complaint.”

She lifted her foot up, paused, relishing the look on his face as realisation sank in. She brought her foot down on his face fiercely, water and blood splashing her face. He spluttered, tried to get up, and she stamped on him again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

She screamed as she crushed his head beneath her boot, though she didn’t hear herself.

He’d gone limp and a black smokiness was suffusing the water around his head when Asami pulled her away.

Korra felt very suddenly exhausted and her legs gave way. She and Asami sank down onto the floor, the cold water seeping through her jumpsuit and making her shiver uncontrollably. Asami cradled her in her arms, fingers stroking her hair and lips kissing her forehead, her eyes, her nose, and her cheeks. Her metal arm had stopped flickering and was beginning to go cold.

Korra closed her eyes and gripped Asami tightly.

“You were so badass,” Korra whispered eventually.

“I know right!” Asami laughed. Just hearing that throaty chuckle made Korra feel alive again. “I really hurt my ankle when I jumped from the ceiling,” she whispered as Korra covered her face in kisses.

Korra held Asami’s face between her gloved hands and looked earnestly into her eyes. “I’m so sorry for leaving you.”

Asami rested a metal hand over one of Korra’s. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. And I’m sorry.”

“Just … don’t do it again.”

Korra kissed Asami on the mouth. She barely brushed Asami’s lips, afraid that she would crush the life out of her if she kissed her with the full strength of what she was feeling. It wasn’t deep but it was probably the most passionate kiss they’d ever shared.

They clambered to their feet, dripping and bleeding and shivering, and trudged out of the canteen.

Opal, Jinora, Kai and a barely conscious Bolin were waiting for them in the corridor.

They stood in silence for a few moments.

Korra hated goodbyes.

Eventually Korra swallowed and said, “I … guess this is goodbye then.”

Opal wrapped her arms tightly around her and whispered, “We’ll see each other again.”

Korra smiled and kissed her cheek. Korra was then stuck in a sandwich between Jinora and Kai while Opal nearly choked Asami in a deep hug.

Even in the dim light Bolin looked pale. He winced audibly as Korra hugged him.

“See ya, Bo,” she said, and then, leaning up to reach his ear, she hissed, “If you hurt Opal I swear to everything you hold holy, I will emasculate you with a very small, very rusty pair of sugar tongs.” Bolin grinned and Korra patted his cheek.

Korra tore the taped up gloves off and reached out for Asami's hand. She felt strong, calloused fingers entwine in hers and she smiled sadly.

“I’m going to miss all of you so much,” she said. Asami made a choked noise of agreement and Korra pretended not to know she was crying. She stood in the waterlogged corridor, suddenly reluctant to leave.

“Go on,” Bolin said, a big arm wrapped around Opal’s shoulders. “Piss off, you two.”

Korra laughed and she and Asami limped down the corridor, hand in hand. Asami turned back and, wiping her nose on Korra’s hand, said “Say goodbye to everyone for us. Tell them we love them.”

Their four friends waved and, as they turned the corner, Korra felt Jinora’s sadness and something that might have been a hug brush the back of her mind. She wondered if Asami had felt it too.

“Wait!” Opal came tearing around the corner and before Korra knew what had happened, she had pressed her lips over Korra’s mouth. The kiss was long and deep and Korra hadn’t a clue what was going on. Asami had let go of her bandaged hand and Opal’s fingers were buried deep in her matted hair.

Opal finally let her go, grinning mischievously.

“What was that for?!” Korra asked, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

Opal shrugged, still grinning, and headed back the way she’d come. “Bye, Korra! Don’t tell Bolin!”

“Don’t tell me what?” Bolin’s voice asked faintly.

Asami had her arms folded across her chest, a scowl hiding the huge smirk on her face.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Korra snapped, turning on her heel and heading down the dark corridor, hoping she’d get killed by a guard or a rampaging alien before anyone noticed the blush scorching her cheeks.

It wasn’t long before they were walking hand in hand again, walking in comfortable silence.

They were soon back at the cargo bay where Korra had left Asami. The pile of unconscious guards had gone. Korra pointed that out and Asami said that Varrick had “taken care of it.” Korra shuddered to think just what exactly that meant.

Korra wasn’t sure she’d be able to make it up the elevator shaft but after a few minutes of climbing, the gravity had dropped away to practically nothing. Asami had taken a safety harness from one of the unconscious guards they’d come across and they’d tied themselves together so Korra wasn’t in any danger of plunging to her death. Well, not alone, anyway.

Despite being nearly weightless, Korra’s arms felt as though they were going to fall off by the time they reached the top (or bottom, or whatever, screw weightlessness) of the shaft.

While Korra caught her breath, Asami kicked herself off the ladder, spun backwards in mid-air, coiled her legs up to her chin, and then lashed out at the airlock hatch. The hatch swung open and harsh light stung Korra’s eye.

The hangar, like Asami had said, was shielded against electromagnetic pulses, so the lights were still working.

Dazed and shielding her eye with a bloodied hand, Korra climbed through the hatch and waited for her vision to clear.

Asami was rubbing her sore ankle and trying to lock the doorway behind them.

“Asami …” Korra said as her sight returned to her.

“Yes?”

“Where’s the shuttle?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone noticed that Korra used the four elements in the canteen fight, right? Right?!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning on doing another really long chapter but I thought you probably deserved a shorter one after the last one I put you through. I hope it doesn't seem too short.

Korra felt like crying. She balled her fists, pursed her lips, and swallowed awkwardly. It wasn’t fair. After everything she’d done, after everything they’d been through, it wasn’t fair.

The shuttle was gone.

They were stuck here on this rusting shit heap.

Asami was saying something, but Korra wasn’t listening.

It wasn’t fair.

She could still smell smoke and rocket fuel on the air. Whoever had taken the shuttle had done it very recently. That made it worse, somehow. If only they’d been a few minutes, perhaps even seconds, sooner.

Korra wiped her eyes on her arm and remembered she was still wearing those fragments of riot gear she’d stolen. Furious and on the verge of tears, she tore it all off. Flinging dented shoulder pads, scraped forearm guards, bloodied kneepads and everything else into the jungle of gantries and robotic arms and machinery that filled the hangar like overgrown vines, Korra’s vision blurred and she felt hot tears clinging to her eyelids. Her vision continued to worsen and she remembered that without gravity, tears don’t fall, they just fill your eyes.

‘Fuck zero gravity,’ Korra thought bitterly.

She shook her head furiously, trying to dislodge the tears, but she just managed to get stinging salt water in her mouth, nose, and numerous cuts and grazes.

Korra batted the rapidly growing and writhing water off her face and out her eyes with her bandaged hand. The tears dispersed into hundreds of little droplets, some floating aimlessly while others clung defiantly to her bruised and bloodied fingers, and Korra was able see again. Albeit only with one eye. She wondered with a heavy heart whether her artificial eye would ever work again.

A hand, hard and strong and cold, gripped her bruised arm and pulled her gently back to the walkway. She hadn’t even realised that she’d been floating away. Korra grabbed hold of the walkway’s peeling yellow-painted metalwork and sighed.

She wondered why it was called a walkway when it was practically impossible to walk in zero gravity. Then she remembered they were stranded here and decided she didn’t care about walkways or linguistics.

Asami hadn’t let go of her arm yet. Korra was grateful for that. She didn’t really need to be holding her. They were still joined together by the metal cable Asami had stolen from a guard’s safety harness so even if she did float off again, she wouldn’t go very far.

Korra checked to make sure she’d wiped away the last traces of her tears, swatting a spiralling droplet away with the back of her hand, and then she looked at Asami. Brow furrowed and mouth set hard with anger, Asami had her eyes shut as though she were struggling to contain her frustration.

A few vestiges of red lipstick still clung to her lips, flecks of pinkish-red amidst the dried blood and dirt smearing her face. Smudges of eye shadow seemed to merge with the bruises and the dark circles under her eyes.

Asami opened her eyes and swallowed hard. Korra could see unfalling droplets growing slowly in the corners of her eyes, threatening to crawl across her nose. She smiled slightly, fleetingly, as Korra brushed the tears off Asami’s face with her thumb.

Korra’s thumb traced the faint but noticeable scar running over Asami’s eye and down her cheek. Asami pulled Korra closer and rubbed circles into Korra’s arm with her metal thumb. Korra thought she could see the burning anger in Asami beginning to fade a little.

“Where’s the shuttle?” Korra asked again, voice threatening to break.

“Varrick,” Asami hissed. Korra could hear the pain and anger in her voice. She’d been so close. Over two years stuck in this metallic purgatory and she’d been so close to getting out. It wasn’t fair. “He took the bloody shuttle!”

“You think so?” Korra wasn’t entirely convinced.

“Of course it was him!” Asami’s hard fingers dug into Korra’s arm. Korra winced slightly though Asami hadn’t hurt her. “Shit, sorry,” she gasped, voice suddenly soft and letting go of Korra’s arm.

“Did he know the hatch would be unlocked?” Korra asked, reaching out for Asami’s hand without realising. Asami’s metal fingers, cold and tarnished, felt comforting and reassuring in her bloodied and bandaged hand.

Asami let out a deep breath through flared nostrils.

“I …” Asami said, anger fading into something closer to embarrassment, “I might have mentioned it. I don’t know.” She groaned and looked like she wanted to hit something. “It’s typical of that piece of shit! He only cares about himself.”

“I take great affront to that!” a muffled voice snapped.

An ancient, dirty-grey spacesuit, thick with dust and patched with what looked like duct tape, floated out from behind a huge tank of fuel a few yards from the walkway. There was a long moment of silence until, squeaking, the spacesuit waved at them awkwardly.

“Varrick!” Asami roared, flecks of spit carouselling through the air.

“I would never do something as … as … as selfish and reckless and assholish as that! It’s slander! Slander and lies and …”

She’d clearly forgotten that the other end of the cable around her waist was wrapped around Korra’s, because Asami leapt at the spacesuit, yanking Korra spine-jarringly into the walkway’s railing and through the air. All three of them smashed into each other and were catapulted through the air, spinning wildly. It seemed to Korra that they managed to hit every pump, crane, and robotic clamp in the vast, rusting, cylindrical chamber until, finally, they collided with a large, retractable service gantry near the centre of the hangar.

The air was knocked out of Korra’s lungs and, gasping, she clawed desperately for a handhold on the slippery metal as they began to drift back the way they’d flown. With a tentative handhold on the condensation and oil slick metal, Korra pulled herself into the huge metal arm that stretched across the hangar. This was one of several enormous gantries which held the shuttles securely in place when they were docked so Korra had plenty of room to crouch inside it.

Legs braced against metal, she gripped the cable and felt it snap taught. Asami sailed slowly back towards her through the air, pulling the space-suited Varrick with her, metal arm clamped tightly around his ankle. As they drifted nearer, Korra undid the cable from around her waist, the heavy-duty woven metal playing havoc with her already skinned and bloodied hands. She tied the cable loosely around one of the gantry’s thick, criss-crossed struts and, with Asami safely anchored, she helped them both inside.

“Asami!” Varrick’s muffled voice cried desperately from inside the dusty helmet.

“Took. The damn. Shuttle!” Asami growled as she tried futilely to throttle him. “Kill you!”

“Asami! If I took the shuttle then why am I still here?!”

Asami stopped clawing at the spacesuit for a few seconds before reluctantly letting him go.

Gasping, Varrick pulled the helmet off. “Boy, is it hot in there!” He rested a heavy gloved hand on Asami’s shoulder and smiled. “Asami, my dearest friend, I forgive you for trying to throttle me.”

Asami narrowed her eyes at him and he took his hand off her shoulder with a look on his face as though he’d mistakenly petted a caged lioness, thinking it was a sleeping tabby cat.

Asami turned to Korra, tangled black hair writhing in the air, and placed her hands in Korra’s. She gave Asami a soft squeeze, sighing.

“What are going to do?”

“I … I don’t know,” Asami admitted. “I’d counted on the shuttle being here.”

“Is there no other way off?” Korra couldn’t stand the thought of staying in the prison any longer. She had to get out. There’s nothing quite like the promise of freedom, even a promise as slight and fleeting as theirs, to make you desperate.

Asami chewed her lip. “We could wait until the shuttle that was going to transfer you gets here. We could overpower the guards and steal it. They’ll be heavily armed and … I don’t think I have any more fight left in me.”

“Neither do I.”

“We’ll have to think of something because that ship will be here in a few hours.”

“Shit,” Korra whispered. She was rapidly coming to the realisation that their plan had been very fucking far from perfect. “What about everyone who’s staying here? What about Opal and Jinora and everyone? What are they going to do when the shuttle gets here?”

“The hangar doors are controlled from here,” Varrick pointed out sheepishly as though he were afraid Asami was going to try strangling him again. Judging by the scowl on her face and her curled lip, that was a very real possibility. “You probably wouldn’t stand a chance against them in a fight, but the losers staying here? They can just keep the doors locked and tell them to sod off. Or, assuming you do manage to escape, they can just say: ‘Who? Oh, her? She’s not here. She escaped. Sorry for the wasted trip. Bye!’”

Korra breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time since she and Asami first thought about escaping, she was sure that her friends would be okay. They’d figure something out. The power would be back on soon as well and they’d be able to open the rest of the cell blocks. Then any remaining guards wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.

Maybe Jinora had been right. Now that the warden was gone and the prisoners had free reign of the prison, they really were kind of untouchable.

That didn’t help her and Asami though.

“Wait,” Korra said suddenly, frowning at Varrick. “If you weren’t going to take the shuttle, why are you up here?”

“Good question!”

Asami turned on him, lip curled in anger. “Varrick.”

“Sleep walking?” Varrick said, unconvincingly and backing away.

“Varrick!”

“I was going to steal the shuttle and escape on my own!” Varrick exclaimed. “The prison’s crawling with murderers and psychos. And that’s just the guards. Have you seen this face? Do you know what murder can do to your complexion?”

“So you decided to take the shuttle,” Asami said, rapidly losing patience with him.

“So I decided to take the shuttle. Though I don’t see how that’s any less morally apprehensible than what you were planning.”

Asami gasped, offended to her core.

“We asked our friends if they wanted to come with us!” Korra said, though part of her knew Varrick might have been partly right.

“And?” Varrick snapped. “I did as well. Pabu said no.”

“Who took the shuttle?” Asami asked. Korra recognised that faint flicker in her eyes. She’d thought of something.

“Right, so, I was all suited up,” Varrick said, enjoying the excuse to start storytelling far too much, “you can never be too careful and frankly you’ve never been great at repairing envirom-” Asami scowled at Varrick and he swallowed loudly. Korra thought it was incredibly likely he’d just pissed in the suit. “Anyway, I was all suited up, ready to take the shuttle, when three or four guards jumped me and made me launch the shuttle for them and left me behind! Can you believe how selfish some people can be?!”

“What is the world coming to?” Asami said, voice dripping with sarcasm as she squeezed out of the gantry. “Take the spacesuit off.”

“Ah, hmm, you see, I would. But … I’m going commando under here and …”

“Take the damn suit off!” she yelled, throwing herself off the gantry.

Grumbling, Varrick did as he was told as Asami soared through the air. Grateful that Varrick had been lying about not wearing anything under the spacesuit, Korra watched in concern as Asami smashed into a freshly painted orange walkway and climbed hand over hand towards a battered computer terminal.

Korra heard her mumble at it, hit the computer, and the screen flickered weakly.

After a few seconds, Asami twisted around in the air and yelled, “Korra! Quick! Get the suit on!”

Korra pushed Varrick out of the way, yanked his foot out of the suit, and began to pull it on. “Asami?”

“We can catch it!” Asami shouted and a huge grin spread across her face. She spoke quickly, excitedly, barely pausing for breath. Her voice echoed around the hangar and Korra struggled to hear what she was saying, though she got the general idea. “We can catch the shuttle! I don’t think they realised that photonic rockets take a while to get going. They pushed her too far with the chemical rockets when they took off and blew a thruster or something. They’ve fired the retros and they’re struggling to do course corrections. We can catch them!”

“Oh, no.” Korra muttered as she worked her arms into the suit. “Don’t say it. Don’t say it.”

“We’re going to space-dive!”

Korra sighed. The last time she’d done a space-dive, she’d almost died. She’d been wearing a state of the art stealth suit with an only slightly damaged propulsion system, had Raava to catch her, and may have had a little bit of a death wish.

And now! Now she was crammed into an ancient spacesuit that was too big for her and would spring a leak if she so much as sneezed. She had no way to change course, nothing to catch her, and absolutely no desire to die.

Asami summersaulted through the air, already halfway into another equally ancient spacesuit, and smiled at Korra, eyes bright and hair spilling wildly behind her. Seeing that smile, Korra’s fears washed away. She reached out a hand and guided Asami back to the gantry.

With only one arm in the suit, Asami grabbed Korra’s face between a thick gloved hand and a cold metal hand, and kissed her messily somewhere between her mouth and nose.

Like an infection, Asami’s smile spread to Korra’s lips.

“We’re going to make it!” she said kissing Korra again, voice low and serious.

“Umm,” Varrick said quietly, “can I come with you?”

Asami smile vanished. “There’re only two suits.”

“I’m fairly sure there are more,” Varrick said.

“There aren’t,” Asami growled.

“Fine,” Varrick said sulkily. “But if I have to stay here then I’m going to use my superior intelligence to rule over the peasants here.”

“Actually,” Korra said, reaching for the helmet that was spinning slowly in the air, “some of the prisoners were thinking of using this dump as a kind of base to launch an attack on the Empire. They’ll need someone to make weapons and fix the prison up for them.”

Varrick’s eyes lit up. “You … you mean I’ll be the kooky but loveable mechanic in a ragtag band of rebels and misfits fighting an intergalactic dictatorship? And I’ll get to make things that’ll blow shit up?”

“I … guess,” Korra shrugged.

Varrick sniffed and wiped a tear away. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. That and my own moon.”

Before he could start telling them about Varrick World, Asami and Korra climbed onto a gantry overheard that ran the entire length of the hangar.

Shimmying along the huge, metal appendage, Korra felt sick and dizzy with vertigo. The ‘floor’ of the hangar far beneath them curved up on both sides, becoming the ‘roof’ far above their heads and she couldn’t get her brain to decide which was the ‘floor’ and which was the ‘roof’. She felt like a beetle trapped in an overturned and very dirty bottle.

Asami, the right-hand sleeve of her spacesuit flapping behind her emptily, grabbed her by the hand and swung herself through the air. Korra clung to her helmet and kept her eyes tightly shut. They landed on a massive, rust-stained pipe that ran about half the length of the hangar and vanished beneath the hangar’s huge airlock that loomed over them. Korra imagined the pipe was probably big enough to run one of Ba Sing Se’s under-city trains through it.

Before they went ricocheting off, Asami bent down and touched something on Korra’s boot. There was a faint humming and, with a _clang_ , she was pulled back down onto the surface of the pipe. Asami did the same thing to her own boots.

“Small electromagnets,” Asami explained, as she tried to push her metal arm into the sleeve of the spacesuit.

Holding her helmet between her knees, Korra tried to help Asami get into the suit.

It was no use. The recent adaptions Asami had made to her arm had made it impossible to get it into the sleeve without tearing the suit. Korra suggested trying to strip the arm of the alterations, but Asami said it would take too long. What wasn’t simply taped on was screwed or soldered into place. Besides, she wasn’t convinced that the arm would fit even if they did manage to strip it of all the weaponised parts.

They only had a window of a few minutes. If they wasted any more time they’d end up careening though space until they ran out of air or froze.

“I’ve got to take it off,” Asami realised.

Korra already had her suit on, and her fingers were clumsy enough without the spacesuit’s thick gloves, so getting the arm off was easier said than done.

“I am being gentle with it! It’s stuck,” Korra said when the release mechanism refused work and Asami told her not to force it.

Asami dragged her hand over her forehead, clenching her eyes tightly shut in frustration. “We’re running out of time,” she muttered. “Just … just get it off.”

Korra grit her teeth, prayed that she wouldn’t hurt Asami, and pulled. With the sound of screaming bionics, snapping plastic, and tearing metal, the casing around Asami’s shoulder came away and Korra was able to pry the top of the arm open. She held it gently like a new-born baby as Asami did the suit up, hoping that she hadn’t broken it.

“Come here,” Korra said. She sighed, handed Asami her arm, and stuffed her wild black hair down into the suit. The last thing she needed was her hair filling the helmet and suffocating her.

Asami smiled, a faint blush creeping into her cheeks as Korra’s gloved hand lingered on her cheek.

“Thanks.”

Korra wanted to kiss her. She wanted to kiss her and never stop, never take another breath. If she was going to suffocate, she’d have much preferred to do it that way than careening blindly through the frozen emptiness.

“Now what?”

Asami gave her the arm back and pointed towards the end of the pipe, near where it plunged through the hull of the satellite beneath the enormous hangar doors. “There’s an access hatch there. I need a wrench.”

Korra nodded and handed her helmet to Asami. She switched off the magnets in her boots and leapt onto a gantry overhead as Asami ran along to the pipe to find the hatch.

Korra leapt from gantry to gantry, gripping the metal arm tightly and ignoring the sickly feeling rising in her throat. She hated weightlessness but this feeling was at least partly dread of the prospect of leaving the prison and dread at the thought of not being able to leave.

At last, she found one of the many utility boxes that stored most of the tools needed around the hangar. She tugged on the handle, waiting impatiently as the lid hissed and opened slowly. She thought it was probably doing it deliberately.

Eventually, Korra came back with a large wrench and one of the elasticated straps that were used to lash machinery and tools down and stop them floating off and getting sucked into engines and thrusters and vents.

As Asami attacked the stubborn bolts with the wrench, Korra wedged her helmet between two drainage pumps and began tying the strap to Asami’s metal arm. She tied one end around the wrist and the other around a flexible but sturdy-looking metal hose that protruded from near the shoulder and ran down to just above the crookedly repaired elbow. Tugging on the knots to make sure they were secure, she slung it over her shoulder, the strap across her chest and the lifeless arm banging against her back and the oxygen tanks every time she moved.

By the time she was done, a swarm of rusty bolts was floating around Asami and she was pulling on the wrench, straining against the last bolt. Sweat was clinging to her forehead and she was gasping for breath through clenched teeth.

Korra rested a hand on Asami’s shoulder and eased her away from the stubborn hatch. Gripping the handle and bracing herself against the pipe with her feet, Korra pulled. She felt every muscle and sinew in her arms and shoulders screaming. She ground her teeth, ignoring the pain and Asami’s concerned looks.

There was a sound of metal twisting and buckling, and with a deafening thunderclap, Korra tore the hatch off and flung it through the air as if it were nothing more than a plastic frisbee.

Asami looked at her with an expression that was somewhere between desperate desire and open-mouthed surprise as Korra panted and rubbed her sore arms.

Asami blinked as though coming out of a trance and squeezed through the broken hatch into the pipe, beckoning to Korra. “’Into the garbage chute, flyboy!’” she said, voice echoing in the chute.

“Very funny,” Korra muttered as she grabbed her helmet. Without looking back, she followed Asami into the darkness.

She found herself in a chamber about ten feet long, sliding doors in front and behind her that reminded her of bulkheads in a submarine. There were smooth grooves in the sides of the pipe like train tracks, and the smell was appalling.

“Wait, were you joking? This isn’t really the garbage chute!” Asami made a vague noise as she felt along the wall near the heavier looking doors. “This is the garbage chute! What is it with you and taking me down disgusting pipes?!” Korra asked indignantly.

Asami laughed and pulled a panel off the side of the chute. She reached inside and pulled out a fistful of wires.

As Korra hung in the air, trying not to throw up and to calm her panicked breathing, Asami bit through a wire and stripped the insulating plastic off the ends with her teeth. She repeated this process a few times and began twisting the frayed ends of differently coloured wires together.

Korra watched Asami fiddling with the wires and felt herself calming down. She let out a long, deep, slow breath and ran her hand through her messy, matted hair, trying futilely to tame it in the weightlessness.

Asami worked quickly and, after less than a minute, she pushed the wires back into the side of the pipe and replaced the panel.

She straightened up and floated over to Korra, the empty sleeve of her suit hanging limply in the air.

“All done,” she said, doing a good job at hiding any sign of doubt or fear.

Korra breathed a sigh of relief and whispered, “Can I kiss you?”

In the column of light filtering into the pipe through the broken hatch, Asami’s face seemed to light up. Asami laughed and nodded. “Yes,” she said, quietly, looking longingly into Korra’s eyes as she put her hand on Korra’s hip and pulled her towards her.

Asami pressed her lips to Korra’s in a long, tender kiss. Korra tried to make it last as long as she could. She was painfully aware that it might be their last.

She wanted to preserve that kiss in amber, to preserve every part of the kiss in her mind forever.

Pushing her senses to their limits, she savoured – no, savoured wasn’t the right word – Korra _treasured_ every part of the kiss. She treasured the feel of Asami’s dry but still soft, bruised and bitten lips against hers and the feel of her hand on the small of her back. She treasured the taste of Asami’s lips, the smell of her skin, the way her nose was squished against hers. She treasured her warmth, her body pressed against hers, the sounds of her breath, and she ended up wishing she had more senses.

Most of all, she treasured the way the kiss made her blood soar and her stomach flutter, just like it had that first time in the showers and the night she’d gotten out of solitary and every time she’d kissed Asami after that.

Reluctantly, they drew apart. They looked at each other for a moment, foreheads and noses touching until Korra hugged Asami fiercely. She felt the overwhelming need to tell Asami that she loved her, but she swallowed the impulse and let go of Asami. She’d be damned if her last words were gonna be some sappy, paperback-romance shit.

Asami looked like she was about to say something, her eyes fixed on Korra’s, but she coughed, looked away. “Better put your helmet on,” she mumbled.

Asami helped Korra to get her helmet on as best she could. At last, Korra heard a click and the air feeds gasped.

Asami’s suit was a different design from Korra’s. Her helmet wasn’t a veritable goldfish bowl that had to be screwed on like Korra’s was. Asami’s was able to be pulled back behind her head like a hood. When she touched something on her collar, two curved pieces of metal slid into place over her shoulders and around her neck, and the helmet unfurled, hissing as it encased her head in interlocking plates of reinforced glass and plastic.

Small LED lights inside the helmet flickered on, illuminating Asami’s face in an ethereal beauty.

“Is the radio working?” Asami asked, her voice a dissonant, crackling whisper in Korra’s helmet.

Korra nodded, then, realising that Asami probably couldn’t tell that she was nodding inside her bulky spacesuit, she held up a thumb and said, “Yup.”

Asami smiled and held out a hand to Korra which she grasped gratefully.

“Brace yourself!” Asami said, over the radio, turning them both in the air so that the outer doors were above their head and the other doors were at their feet. Korra felt like she was standing, or rather floating, at the bottom of an enormous oil drum. “In a few seconds, the doors … _kzzz_ … going to open and we’ll be sucked out into space.”

“What?!” Korra squeezed Asami’s hand and felt her already racing heartbeat speed up. “Asami, we won’t be going fast enough!”

“Oh, umm,” Asami nodded towards the doors beneath them, “there’s gonna be a small explosion as well.”

“Explosion?!” Korra yelled, blood freezing. She grabbed the empty sleeve of Asami’s suit, gripping it tightly in her hand. “What the fuck do you mean there’s gonna be a fu-”

For possible last words, they were not the best, and Korra found herself wishing she had said ‘I love you’ when she’d had the chance.

There was an eruption of light and sound behind them, the doors in front of them flew open, and in a deafening rush of air and fire, Korra and Asami were flung violently out into the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have Korra and Asami finally escaped?! Will they survive the space dive and if they do will they stand a chance of surviving on Si Wong?! Just how many more sci-fi references can I shove into this embarrassment?! While you wait for the answers why not explore more of this AU by reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Earth Empire? There are three chapters now and the world-building and homoerotism is increasing with each update! If you don't read it then I'll introduce an annoying droid into this called 10-ZIN just to spite you all!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update?! Less than a week since the last one?! What madness is this?! 
> 
> I forgot to mention this in the last update, but I reread some of the earlier chapters. I realised just how little I had planned when I started writing this and I've had to change the bit in Chapter 2 where Kai asks Korra about her tattoo. To save you the trouble of rereading it for this incredibly unimportant change, I'll summarise it here for you! Instead of Korra getting the tattoo after some unexplained drunken one night stand type thing (which was an awful idea by the way and you're all terrible for not complaining about that), she now got the tattoo after the portal blew up and during the months of resulting self-hatred/depression/crippling guilt/etc. that she tried to drown in alcohol. There's also a little bit more backstory about her and Mako now. We know from that scene now that they were dating/living together before the portal accident but broke up soon after at least in part due to Korra's spiral into self-destruction.

Korra couldn’t understand why people think there’s no sound in space.

Space is deafening.

Korra’s blood was roaring in her ears. She could hear her heart pounding in her chest and every ragged, panicked breath she took was a hurricane raging in her helmet. The suit’s breathing apparatus was so loud that her eardrums threatened to burst with every laboured hiss and gasp. Her spacesuit and her joints groaned with each little movement she made, and ice was creaking and cracking like thunder as it crept across her visor.

Through the deafening sound of nothingness, she couldn’t even tell if she was screaming. She found herself thinking of a strapline from an old science-fiction movie and ground her teeth. She immediately regretted doing that, wincing as the grating, ear-splitting sound tore through her.

It dawned on Korra suddenly that they hadn’t checked the oxygen levels on the suits’ tanks. She tried to slow her breathing and told herself that, if everything went well, they’d only be in the vacuum for a few seconds. If everything went badly then they were screwed, oxygen or no oxygen.

She didn’t dare think about what would happen if everything went wrong.

Ice and frost may have been forming on her visor and spacesuit, but inside the stifling suit, Korra was sweating out of every pore.

A crackle of static cut through the howling and crashing blood in her ears. The crackle grew louder and louder until it became laughter, an ecstatic, childish laughter.

Korra realised she had her eyes clenched tightly shut and cautiously opened them. Through the dust-smeared, frost-covered visor of her helmet, she could just about make out Asami’s face. She was laughing, laughing so hard that, if it weren’t for the enormous smile and gleaming eyes, she might have looked like she was in pain. The lights inside her helmet made the tears filling her eyes gleam brighter than the stars that juddered and blurred around her like a swarm of fireflies.

Korra couldn’t understand why Asami was laughing. Had she lost it? Did she have a leak in her suit? Was she laughing in a mad panic as the air was torn from her lungs and her blood boiled?

Then Korra understood and started laughing as well.

They were free.

More or less.

Asami was still gripping her right hand and Korra squeezed her fingers. ‘You did it. We’re free,’ that squeeze said. ‘We’re free and we’re together and I love you and I’m never letting go again,’ and so much more that Korra would never be able to properly express or comprehend, not even in that part of herself, deep down inside, where there are no words.

Laughter fading into serenity, Asami smiled at her. And, as if in answer to Korra’s eloquent squeeze, Asami closed her eyes slowly, pushing the tears out so that, when she opened her eyes again, the opalescent dewdrops clung to her eyelashes.

Korra was glad they were facing each other. She doubted she’d have been able to turn to look at Asami with her helmet on. And she needed to be looking at Asami, at her smile, her laughing face, her deep-green eyes, to stop herself from passing out.

“We … _kzzz_ … it!” Asami yelled, her breath fogging up the inside of her helmet. The radio was crackling and fizzing, stifling Asami’s voice, and Korra could barely hear her over the sound of the blood in her ears and her heavy breathing. “Korra … _kzzz_ … fucking did it! Even if … _kzzz_ … die out here … _kzzz_ … worth it!”

Korra raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips.

Asami recognised what the look meant and laughed. She leant her head forwards so that her helmet touched Korra’s, as though she were trying to kiss her. Their helmets met with a hollow, resonating _clink_ and Korra realised that if they died right that second – which was not entirely out of the realm of possibility – it would _absolutely_ have all been worth it.

With their helmets touching, Korra could hear the faint whispers of Asami’s breathing through the glass. That was comforting, like they were just lying in bed together, weightless and warm in each other’s arms.

Korra craned her head back as far as she could, which, with the constricting suit and cumbersome helmet, was not very far. She didn’t look back at the prison – she looked for Si Wong.

She couldn’t find it though. She couldn’t even see the suns, but she did catch a glimpse of a bright flickering light directly above them. (Or below them. Korra tried not to think about that.) The light was bigger than the stars that smudged into a cold-white haze in her peripheral vision, and it was growing rapidly. It shimmered in the sunlight and the glare hurt her eye. Blinking, she could still see the light reflected off the shuttle’s hull in a shifting aurora of colours.

When she was young – too young to be out of her family’s dome on her own yet of course she’d found a way – she would stare at the weak summer sunlight caught in the ice floe below the compound. She would stare as long as she could, and when it became unbearable and she had to close her eyes, the light would be trapped behind her eyelids.

“How far away is it?” Korra shouted, blinking away the glare and the memory. She wasn’t sure if Asami would be able to hear her over the piece-of-shit radio but asked anyway. She had no idea how fast they were going, wasn’t sure exactly how big the shuttle was, where it had been when they’d been thrown from the garbage chute. Plus, her artificial eye still hadn’t started working again, not that depth perception would have helped her much in the emptiness of space. The shuttle could have been inches or miles away for all she could tell.

She could see Asami’s mouth moving, but she couldn’t hear her. Maybe the radio had stopped working. Maybe her own breathing and creaking joints had finally deafened her. Maybe her suit had been punctured and was depressurising and she hadn’t realised yet. ‘Please let it be the radio,’ Korra thought.

As the shuttle got bigger and bigger, Korra gripped Asami’s hand even tighter and let go of the empty sleeve she’d been holding. With her free hand, she reached out to the enormous, shimmering metal star they were plunging towards.

They were soon just a matter of yards from the shuttle.

Then a matter of feet.

Then inches.

Whatever Asami shouted as gleaming metal rushed up at them was drowned out by Korra’s racing heartbeat and desperate breathing.

The air was knocked out of her lungs as they crashed violently against the shuttle and Korra heard Asami gasping for breath over the radio as well. Upon impact, tiny white flakes of ice exploded into the darkness. There was a noise like a frozen lake beginning to thaw and Korra saw a thin, almost delicate, crack creeping across her visor.

Korra held Asami’s hand as tightly as she could, her arm straining in its socket as they rolled and skidded across the hull. She reached out her free hand, desperately clawing at the sheer surface, searching for a handhold as they rapidly began to run out of shuttle.

The radio was apparently not broken after all as Korra heard Asami’s scream screeching through the speakers in her helmet.

They tumbled wildly across the curving metal belly of the shuttle. The hair-thin crack in her visor jolted an inch further across the glass with another ice-like snap. She felt a stab of pain in her ribs and her knee, but more frighteningly, she felt her grip on Asami slipping.

Korra reached down to her boot and fumbled blindly until she felt something click. Twisting clumsily, Korra ground her heels into the hull. Nothing happened. Had the magnets in her boots stopped working?

Asami must have realised what she was trying to do because she yelled breathlessly over the radio, “That won’t work … _kzzz_ … hull’s made of a t-” Their momentum flipped them over, slamming them into the hull again. Korra almost lost her grip on Asami and she heard her groan in pain. “OW! Shit! It’s not magnetic!”

Korra thought about ripping off her oxygen tanks and using the rush of air to slow them down but she knew that was a terrible, terrible idea.

They were fast approaching the nose of the shuttle.

She had just seconds before they careened into the void.

Korra vaguely remembered something about the shuttle. There were metal rungs set into the hull somewhere near the nose. Just over a day ago, Asami had held onto one of those rungs while Korra had had her hand between her legs. Had that really been less than two days ago? It felt like a lifetime ago.

Korra calmed her breathing, gripped Asami’s hand until it hurt, and waited.

The end of the shuttle was getting closer and closer and the sun gleaming on the hull hurt Korra’s eye.

Holding her breath and setting her jaw, Korra reached out her hand and prayed.

Nothing happened.

Had she missed the rungs? Were they on the other side? Were they going to die out here?

Suddenly her fingers closed around something. Her arm was almost wrenched off as her uncontrollable fall through space was brought to an abrupt, painful stop.

Her heart fell into the pit of her stomach and a deathly cold washed over her as she felt Asami’s fingers slip through hers until she was grasping at emptiness. Korra opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out, just a choked, inhuman gasp that rattled in her throat and her ears.

A grunt crackled through the radio’s speakers and Korra felt something tug hard on her leg, almost pulling her off the rung.

Ready to let go of her handhold and follow Asami into the abyss, Korra looked down. She almost burst into tears as Asami smiled up at her, green eyes still wide with terror. She was clinging to Korra’s ankle, teeth gritted in furious determination.

Relief washed through Korra and she let out a deep, deep breath that fogged the inside of her helmet.

With Asami clinging to her ankle, Korra pulled herself along the rungs, hand over hand, towards an airlock near the cockpit that she could just about see through the reflected glare. The crack in her visor grew another inch and branched suddenly into two. One tendril climbed up towards the top of the visor, the other stretched further across the curved, tinted glass, almost to her nose. It was like watching lightning in slow-motion, Korra thought.

She climbed as quickly as she could, convinced that her visor would shatter completely before she could reach the airlock. Korra became painfully aware of the fact that all that separated her from the freezing, infinite emptiness and a very quick death was a thin piece of transparent polycarbonate.

Korra didn’t know how long she would be able to survive if the visor broke. She thought she remembered reading or hearing that it was at least a minute. Her suit had been damaged when she’d abducted Zaheer and space-dived from The Colossus. Blood vessels in her eye had burst, she’d been badly frostbitten, but she had survived.

The only thing comforting her was the fact that, even though her stealth suit hadn’t been too badly damaged and the dive couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, she had passed out before Raava had caught her. So, if her visor did shatter, she figured she probably wouldn’t be conscious for the really nasty stuff.

Trying not to think about her blood freezing and her eyes popping, Korra pulled herself onto the last rung and grabbed the recessed handle set into the airlock.

She sighed and prayed that the visor would hold out a few more seconds.

“What now?” she asked as Asami clambered up her back and peered at the airlock.

Asami chewed her lip thoughtfully for a moment, then, gripping Korra’s arm tightly, she kicked the handle. Korra heard, or rather felt, an echo of metal buckling and gears screaming. She kicked it again with both feet this time. The handle broke off, flying off into the fathomless darkness, and the door lurched open a few inches

“Now, that’s just shoddy workmanship,” Asami said with a faint flicker of a smirk as she let go of Korra and heaved the airlock door open, bracing herself against the rush of escaping air.

“I thought you said you liked the shuttle,” Korra said, teasing Asami to hide the anxiety that was seeping through her. They were so close, something was bound to go wrong. That something was probably her steadily disintegrating visor.

“I said … _kzzz_ … the design,” Asami said, her smirk growing, “I said nothing about the … _kzzzzzz_ …” The radio crackled loudly, cutting Asami off, but Korra chuckled anyway, feeling calmer.

Korra followed Asami into the airlock, arms sore and tired as she pulled herself through the doorway. Asami fumbled in the semi-darkness until her fingers closed on a lever. She pulled it and the door swung slowly closed. A red light above their heads blinked and a strange orange foam filled the edges of the broken airlock door. Korra touched it curiously and found that, in just a few seconds, the foam had already set hard like concrete.

She heard a faint hissing growing steadily louder for about a minute, then the red light turned green and she heard the inner door of the airlock automatically unlock.

Asami pressed something on her helmet and it retracted back behind her head, like a dull metallic flower furling its petals in a sudden frost. She sighed and breathed deeply. She was just breathing in the stale, recycled air of the shuttle, pretty much the same air as she’d been breathing for years in that prison but the way she smiled and filled her lungs hungrily, it was as though she were breathing in the earthy-sweet smell of rotting leaves, pollen-laden meadows, and summer rain.

Taking a last, long breath that turned into a laugh, Asami helped Korra get her more primitive helmet off. The visor splintered into three jagged pieces as Asami tossed the helmet aside.

Korra wrapped her arms around Asami’s neck, burying her face in the hair that was beginning to escape. She felt Asami’s arm slip around her waist and pull her closer. Her heartbeat no longer deafened her, her breathing didn’t howl like a hurricane, and the blood that had been rushing like storm-swept waves in her ears was now just a blush as Asami’s pressed her lips to Korra’s cheek.

“We did it,” Asami whispered as though she could hardly believe it. “We did it. We did it!”

Korra didn’t say anything, she just hugged Asami tighter.

“I think I’ll need my arm back,” Asami said a few minutes later as they wriggled out of their spacesuits.

Korra, with her bloodied, torn fingers, couldn’t undo the strap she’d tied to the arm, and neither could Asami with only one hand. Giving up and hoping the elasticated strap wouldn’t catch on anything, Korra helped Asami reattach the arm. The lobstered sections of the plasticy casing that was meant to lie flat around part of her scarred shoulder and metal bicep were broken and wouldn’t go back into place properly. Although it growled and grated unpleasantly, the padded metal that had unfurled like a flower in spring when she’d taken the arm off, eventually responded to Asami’s gentle cajoling and closed around her stump and stayed in place when she gave it a tug.

She wiggled her metallic fingers experimentally. They were unresponsive at first, and then they twitched, closed slowly into a fist, and eventually relaxed. Asami sighed in relief and gestured to the circular inner door of the airlock.

Korra pushed the door open, quietly. It sighed on its hinges and the sudden shock of harsh light from the passageway hurt Korra’s eye. The cylindrical shaft was barely big enough to walk along without stooping but, of course, without gravity they were able to kick themselves off from the edge of the airlock and glide along through the air without much difficulty.

“Can you fly this piece of shit?” Korra asked, slowing herself down, waiting for Asami to catch up.

“I can fly anything,” Asami said, shooting her a cocky grin as she glided past her.

The passageway soon split into four different passages. One went to the cockpit, one to the hold where prisoners were kept, one to the cargo bay, and one to the engine room. In the weightlessness, Korra had completely lost her bearings but Asami pointed confidently to her left and Korra spun backwards and pulled herself along the tunnel. The shafts were made from a once-white, ridged plastic that offered perfect, if dirty, handholds.

Stuck to the sides of the shaft were warning notices, peeling and dirt-smeared. She glided past one that went over the procedure for hull breaches with almost comical diagrams complete with stick figures. The next one gently reminded her that C-Corp was not responsible for any loss of life incurred on board their shuttles. The next poster claimed C-Corp was proud to support the Empire’s prisons. The one after that asked that Korra report to the designated medical officer if she was feeling unwell. Someone had crossed out ‘unwell’ on the poster and scrawled ‘horny’ with a marker pen.

Korra drifted further and further along the shaft, passing poster after poster.

The dirty shaft ended abruptly with a hatch, ‘FLIGHT DECK – AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY’ written on it in fading stencilled letters.

Just beneath the hatch was a keypad, five of its buttons rubbed clear by a decade’s worth of greasy fingers and rough gauntlets.

A crooked finger to her chin, bottom lip protruding and brow furrowed deep in thought, Asami looked at the keypad. Korra wondered if she was trying to work out all of the many possible combinations.

“We could try flooding the flight deck with fumes from the engine room or redirect the carbon dioxide filters,” Asami said quietly as an index finger hovered uncertainly over one of the buttons. “I don’t think I’d be able to stop the backups though. It’d all be pumped out again after ten minutes or so. And they might have respirators up there. I think this is our best chance of getting through,” she said, gesturing at the keypad.

“Have you worked out the code?” Korra asked.

“There are one hundred and … twenty possible combinations if these five buttons are the only ones being used. More if the code isn’t five digits, but …” Asami sighed. “I don’t know.”

The hatch was thick, there was no doubting that, but the dark metal around the hinges was shot with veins of rust and Korra could see where part of the locking mechanism looked as though it had been bent and then pretty poorly mended.

Cautiously, Asami entered a five-digit sequence, jaw clenched tightly and pausing between each press. Korra heard her hiss a curse under her breath as the display turned red and reset.

Korra tightened the sleeves of her jumpsuit that were knotted around her waist and tried not to think about how much this would hurt her already pretty fucked up hand.

She breathed in through her teeth, slowly. She drew her arm back, felt the muscles coiling, and did her best to wedge her feet securely against the sides of the shaft. She fixed her eyes on the centre of the hatch and let the breath out gently. One well aimed punch and she’d send this hatch flying off its hinges, then she’d leap out into the cockpit in a sudden rush of air and beat the shit out of everyone on board.

Korra was still psyching herself up when Asami swore. Her second attempt had made the display flash red again.

“I hope there’s not a limit to the attempts,” she said through her teeth.

Jaw set and eyes clenched against the expected pain, Korra’s bruised fist struck tarnished metal.

Beads of blood were hot on her skin, seeping through the already near-saturated bandages, and suspended in the air around her. Korra screamed silently, choked back tears and clutched her hand to her chest.

Startled, Asami turned around and gasped.

“What the fuck?!” she hissed, reaching out to hold Korra’s bleeding hand in both of hers. “Did you just try to punch it open?”

Korra scowled at the hatch, a darkly glistening smudge of red amid the brown smudges of rust, and made a noise somewhere between ‘I know, I know, it was stupid’, ‘mother fucking fuck, I’m in a lot of pain’, ‘what’s wrong with me?!’, and a growl of pure, unadulterated hatred for the hatch and the shuttle and everything in it, excluding Asami but including herself.

“What is wrong with you?” Asami snapped, though her voice wasn’t edged with even the smallest hint of reproach. And even if there was just a tiny hint, the concern in her eyes and the way she so tenderly held Korra’s hand and lifted the coarse, frayed strips of bed sheet more than made up for it. “Is anything broken?” Asami whispered, frowning at the bleeding, bruised knuckles as if she believed that the wounds would heal instantly if she were angry enough.

“I don’t think so,” Korra said, feeling stupid and embarrassed and more than a little guilty that she was enjoying Asami’s gentle touches and touching concern so much. “Think … think I pulled my punch a little at the last second.”

“What did you expect was going to happen?” Asami said wearily, shaking her head.

“Honestly? I thought it would fly right off its hinges and you’d be so …” Korra hissed back the pain through her teeth as Asami’s thumb delicately teased a small flap of skin on one of Korra’s knuckles back into place. “And you’d be so impressed by my display of strength … you’d tear off your jumpsuit and ask to do it right here.”

Asami rolled her eyes and did her best to fix Korra’s bandages a little. She held Korra’s hand for a few seconds longer, stroking a fingertip over her wrist, before lifting the bandaged hand to her lips. Korra didn’t even feel the kiss, it was so light.

Asami shook her head at Korra one last time and turned back to the keypad.

Korra ground her teeth and tried making a fist, wincing in pain. Nursing her bloody hand, Korra watched as Asami began prying the front of the keypad off, exposing the circuit boards and wires within.

“I don’t think I’d have been able to satisfy you though,” Korra said looking at her hand, wrapped in the blood-scabbed, blood-sodden bandages, voice hushed and serious with the kind of gravity only a six year old can fully convey. Asami pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbed her eyes, and sighed, a slight smile tugging at her pursed lips. “I’d have tried, but my heart wouldn’t have been in it. And I’d’ve probably cried.”

Asami tried to make a show of sighing exasperatedly but just barely managed to contain a laugh.

“Do you think they heard anything?” Korra asked, nodding at the hatch.

Asami let go of a wire she’d been pulling with her teeth, sniffed, and shook her head. “I don’t think so. The hatch is pretty thick, just like you, and these shuttles are really noisy on the flight deck,” she said, whispering anyway.

While Korra had been biting back the pain in her hand, Asami had been stripping the wires of their insulation, reconnecting them in different orders, and fiddling with the circuit boards. Just as she was sticking a frayed, chewed wire where it didn’t belong, there was a sudden burst of sparks and the smell of burning circuitry and singed hair filled the narrow, grimy shaft.

Coughing and swearing, Asami blinked the afterglow out of her eyes.

Korra patted the sparks out of Asami’s hair. “Kai could have cracked it by now,” she said, teasingly though she couldn’t quite bring herself to smile.

Asami’s frown got deeper and a faint growl reverberated through her chest. She ripped out two wires, a blue one and a red one, twisted the frayed ends of a green and another blue together, and pressed a random sequence of buttons on the keypad.

The keypad flashed red, Asami bit down hard on her lip, and then a gust of cold air rushed past them as the hatch flew open.

Korra raised her eyebrows at Asami and thought about kissing her. She changed her mind and leapt through the open hatch onto the flight deck, almost immediately regretting having changed her mind.

There were four people on the cramped flight deck, all of them in the bulky green uniforms of prison guards.

Korra sailed over their heads and, before they had even noticed her, she had grabbed one of them by the padded shoulders. Twisting in mid-air and bringing her knees down into his stomach, Korra used her momentum to throw the guard across the deck. She had already lunged at the second guard before the first had smashed into the control panels. The smell of smouldering circuit boards and singed clothing drifted through the air as Korra kicked the co-pilot’s seat, span slowly in the air towards the panicking guard, and thrust her elbow into her face. Spores of blood spilled out of the guard’s ruptured nose and mouth as her body went limp.

Korra wasn’t used to fighting in zero gravity. It wasn’t that she was weightless, that wasn’t the strange part. The strange part was how everything felt like it had been slowed down, like something unseen was fighting her every movement, like the entire fight were taking place underwater. Perhaps that was part of the reason Korra was holding her breath without realising.

The guard in the pilot’s seat was yelling incomprehensibly over the din of roaring machinery. He soon stopped his shouting when Korra dragged him out of the seat, felt the bones break in his arm, and smashed his head into the controls.

Korra’s chest was on fire as she let go of his limply floating body. This last bit of exertion had been almost too much for her. She felt lightheaded. Swallowing the taste of bile and trying to focus her blurring vision, Korra turned to grin cockily at Asami but her eyes locked on the only guard still conscious. They hung motionless in the air for what felt like an eternity, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

It was the guard who moved first.

Korra thought he was reaching for a gun, but instead he had took a small square of plastic from his belt and pointed it at Korra. Pausing, overcome with confusion and exhaustion, Korra realised where she’d seen that device before. It was the trigger that activated the explosive bracelet they had strapped onto her wrist before letting her work in the hangar. The explosive bracelet that was still strapped to her wrist. The explosive bracelet that the EMP bomb had made inert.

He pressed the trigger over and over, beads of sweat on his forehead forming and evaporating in rapid succession. Korra gathered the last dregs of energy she had and kicked the spluttering control panel. She plunged through the air towards him, fists outstretched in front of her. She smashed into him, knocking the air out of his lungs, and they crashed into a column of pipes that ran from the floor to the ceiling of the small flight deck.

Nearing her breaking point and the pain in her hand becoming unbearable, Korra soon lost count of how many times she hit him before he stopped struggling.

Korra caught her breath and bit back the pain in her hands, arms, and every fibre of her body as Asami pulled herself over to the pilot’s seat using the handholds built into the ceiling.

“Korra …” Asami said after a few moments, rubbing her tired eyes with a thumb and forefinger.

“Yeah?” Korra gasped breathlessly, stuffing the last of the unconscious guards down through the broken hatch.

“I think you might have been a little over-aggressive,” Asami said defeatedly, wincing as a burst of sparks erupted from a shattered screen. “The controls are busted.”

“Sorry, but it’s not my fault this shuttle is a hunk of junk!” Korra snapped, knowing that it was her fault.

Asami sighed and picked up a shattered piece of plastic, a tangle of torn wires spilling out. “You broke the radio.”

“Who are we gonna call?!” Korra said, floating over to her. “I’m an escaped convict, you’re an escaped prisoner of war! We just stole a shuttle!”

Asami sat in the pilot’s seat and ran her hands through her hair, twisting her fingers in the tangled black curls, and groaned.

“I don’t know, I thought we might be able to bluff something.” She tried some of the controls over her head that had managed to escape Korra’s wrath. Si Wong was looming closer and closer, blotting out the stars.

Korra put a bleeding, bandaged hand on Asami’s shoulder.

“I …” Asami said without looking up from the smashed controls, a quiver of panic rising in her voice. “I don’t know if we’ll end up anywhere near where you were arrested, where we think Raava might be, but I think I can get us down in one piece?”

“You _think_?” Korra asked, eyebrow raised and a cold sweat spreading over her body.

Asami glanced at Korra, her mouth set into a thin, hard line of determination and she grasped the bent joystick.

“I _know_ I can.”

“That’s my girl,” Korra said quietly, smiling a little despite herself and kissing Asami somewhere between the corner of her mouth and her cheek.

Asami fought a smile as a blush crept into her blood and dirt smeared cheeks. “You’d better hang onto yourself!” she yelled over the sound of the shuttle, waving to the co-pilot’s seat.

Korra strapped herself into the seat as the shuttle lurched forwards and Si Wong grew bigger and bigger in the narrow windows in front of her. It looked like a huge shield from an ancient cosmic battle between gods. A shield lost on some forgotten black battlefield. A shield forged from hammered bronze, gleaming like gold in places, dirty and tarnished in others. Mottled with red-brown rust and blood, gouged and slashed and pitted with black craters and gorges and fissures, the shield bore the unmistakable marks of war against the elements.

What Asami had shouted over the sound of groaning machinery and roaring thrusters had reminded Korra of a song that had been on one of Aang’s tapes. She wracked her brains as they crashed into Si Wong’s atmosphere and the shuttle shook violently, trying to remember more than the two or three lines she had stuck in her head.

“… come on … come on … we've really … got a good thing going … well come on … well come on,” she mumbled over and over under her breath, voice juddering in her throat, as the air around the nose of the shuttle burst into flames and the shuttle threatened to tear itself, and Korra, into pieces. “If you think we're gonna make it … you better … hang on to yourself …”

Asami glanced over her shoulder at Korra and grinned.

She was enjoying herself far too much, Korra thought.

Still singing those few lines over and over, Korra tried to see how far from the ground they were but she couldn’t lift her head out of the seat. She felt like she was being crushed into the faded fabric by a tidal wave. Korra shuddered to think what re-entry was doing to the unconscious guards stuffed into the passage way.

“… better hang on … to yourself … come on … come on … we've really … really … rea-” Korra had sung this fragment of the song over a thousand times when her voice caught in her throat and she threw up.

Si Wong rapidly became less like an Olympian shield and more like a vast sun-soaked ocean. The sky turned from black to deep purple to blue and Korra thought she could see the horizon becoming flatter and flatter with every horrifying moment that passed.

The flames that had been dancing around the nose of the shuttle had died down but the shuttle’s fuselage was still visibly glowing.

“Chutes won’t release,” she heard Asami mutter as she stabbed at something on the broken control panel. She sounded remarkably calm under the circumstances. “This is going to hurt.”

Beneath them, Korra could now make out enormous pillars, shards, and ridges of red rock, sculpted smooth by wind and sand.

The shuttle roared through the air, a high-pitched grating roar like something dying. They were plunging lower and lower in the sky. Smoke, thick and black and flecked with glowing embers, erupted from the nose and the shuttle dipped even lower.

Huge mountains of sand rushed past them, threatening to swallow them like tidal waves.

There was a sound like thunder and the shuttle jolted violently. The seat’s harness bit into Korra’s flesh, squeezing the air out of her chest.

“Lost a turbine,” Asami said through gritted teeth, more to herself or to the shuttle than to Korra. “Gonna try firing the retros to slow us down!”

Korra gulped. The retros would do more harm than good in the atmosphere. Alarms screamed and flashed, a halo of searing light around the nose made Korra flinch, and Asami flicked a series of switches on and off several times before growling and thumping her metal fist on the broken control panel. Korra felt a brief moment of weightlessness before the shuttle tipped forwards and the ground rushed up at them.

Asami pulled the joystick back forcefully, pressed a series of unresponsive buttons, and yanked hard on a lever over her head. She pointed at a section of the control panel in front of Korra that was out of her reach.

“Try the flaps!” Asami shouted over the shuttle’s harpy-shriek. Korra chewed her lip and looked blankly at the controls. “Press that!” Korra’s finger hovered uncertainly over a small green button. “No! That one! The one I’m pointing at! Look … look where I’m poi-” Korra smashed her fist down on a blue button and a burst of steam erupted into the flight deck. “No! Next to the blue one! Yes!”

Korra stabbed the button, a lever popped up in front of her, and Asami shouted that she had to pull it _hard_.

Korra pulled it as far as it would go and Asami looked up, head cocked to one side as though she were listening for something.

“No. No, didn’t work. We’re going down,” she said. “I can’t keep us up.” She glanced at Korra out of the corner of her eye as her hands darted over the useless controls again.

The shuttle shrieked and shuddered and the ground was getting closer and closer.

Korra gripped her seat and ground her teeth. She thought about telling Asami she loved her, but she doubted Asami would hear her over the screeching and roaring of the dying shuttle. Korra swallowed the need to tell Asami and decided she didn’t want the last thing she saw to be sand or burnt metal.

She turned to Asami and looked intently at the fierce green eyes beneath the furrowed eyebrows, followed the curve of her almost too sharp nose, down to the lips drawn back over clenched teeth. Korra’s gaze roamed down her throat in much the same way her lips had done countless times before. From the base of her neck, her gaze went across her shoulder, down her arm to her strong hand. The back of her hand was dusted with freckles and flecked with scratches and old burns and there was grime and dried blood under her chewed fingernails.

Korra didn’t look up as a wall of sand and rock loomed over the shuttle.

“Pray this works,” Asami said under her breath, words almost swallowed by the ear-piercing shriek of the shuttle.

Gripping it so tightly that her knuckles turned white and the tendons seemed to almost erupt through the skin, Asami thrust the joystick to the left. The shuttle tipped and the nose swung to the side.

Without thinking and an instant before the shuttle hit the wall of sand and rock, Korra clenched her eyes tightly shut and reached out a hand. She was almost overcome with relief when she felt Asami’s fingers press into her palm as the force of the impact tore through her.

In the years to come, Korra would remember the crash as nothing more than noise and thrashing and pain and Asami’s nails digging into her hand.

She must have lost consciousness at some point because she found herself waking up, blood running into her nose, and her arms dangling above her head. The shuttle was silent. In fact, the only noise she could make out was blood howling like an ocean in her ears. Korra could smell burning and her neck painful and stiff. Confused, she blinked the daze out of her head and looked around.

She was in the cockpit of the shuttle, upside down, still strapped into the co-pilot’s seat. The cockpit was strewn with broken glass, sand was spilling across the ceiling, and a huge rib of metal had sliced through the hull and embedded itself in the floor just behind her seat.

Asami was still strapped into the pilot’s seat, unconscious but breathing. She was bleeding from a gash in her forehead. Blood was running down into her hair and she looked like her nose might have been broken. Korra breathed a sigh of relief as Asami spluttered, coughed, and her eyes snapped open.

“You okay?” Korra asked, fumbling at the fastening of her harness. She could feel the blood rushing into her head and was starting to feel woozy.

Asami groaned and touched at her forehead tentatively. She winced and looked confusedly at the blood on her fingertips. “More or less,” she said.

Korra yelped as her harness suddenly came undone and she fell out of the seat. The sand that had flooded in through the shattered hull broke her fall but it was still a far from graceful landing.

Korra grumbled as she struggled to her feet. She staggered forwards a few steps, unused to the shifting sand under her feet, not to mention the gravity. She ran a bandaged, bloodied hand through her hair, spitting sand out of her mouth and scowling at Asami who was finding it all hilarious.

Despite Korra’s threats to leave Asami hanging there if she kept laughing, she helped Asami down.

“Is your nose okay?” Korra asked, carefully touching Asami’s nose with her fingertips. Asami blushed beneath the dry blood covering her cheeks and looked away, huffing indignantly and fighting a smile.

When Korra was convinced that she wasn’t too badly hurt, Asami staggered through the shifting sand and stood by one of the holes that had been ripped in the hull, looking outside uncertainly. Korra thought she was about to take a step forwards and duck through the hole, but she stayed there, rooted in place. Korra stood beside her, trying to make anything out through the harsh sunlight streaming through the ruptured hull.

Eventually, hand in hand, they stepped into the light.

Blinded for a moment, Korra stopped and shielded her eye from the glare of the suns behind her hand. She felt Asami’s fingers slip out of her hand, but she didn’t get the same sickening, sinking feeling she’d had outside the shuttle when Asami’s hand had let go of hers.

Asami ran down the sandy slope, cautiously at first, limping slowly and then at full speed, arms outstretched and laughing until she tripped on a piece of burnt fuselage half buried in the sand. Korra smiled as Asami yelped and tumbled down the rest of the small incline, landing on her face in the sand. She felt like she’d almost forgotten what it was like to smile.

Korra followed Asami down the dune, more carefully and slowly than she had done. By the time she’d gotten to the bottom, Asami was on her knees, laughing and crying at the same time, her hands thrust deep into the baking hot sand.

She lifted her cupped hands up, watching the sand filtering down through her fingers. Korra watched her, smiling and swallowing the tears she felt rising in her throat.

Asami staggered up, her boots sinking into the sand with every step and ran to Korra. She grabbed Korra’s face, a sandy hand on each cheek, and laughed, tears gleaming in her eyes.

“Isn’t sand wonderful?!” Asami laughed. The blood from the cut on her forehead was running down the side of her nose, mixing with the tears.

“No,” Korra said, smiling. “It’s awful.” She pried Asami’s hands from her now sand-caked face and held them gently, rubbing her thumbs across her sandy fingers as Asami looked up at the sky, filling her lungs with her first breaths of real air in over two years.

“I’m free,” Asami gasped as though she couldn’t believe it, breathless from laughter. She pressed her forehead against Korra’s and whispered, “We’re really free!”

It hadn’t felt real until Asami had said it. They were really free.

Asami threw her arms around Korra and laughed until the laughter turned to tears and the tears turned to hiccups.

“I’ve missed seeing you smile,” Asami whispered.

Korra, smile growing steadily, closed her eyes and held Asami tightly as the suns beat down on them and wind-swept sand bit at her bruised and bloodied skin. It got into her mouth, nose, and eye, and every single one of her cuts and grazes but she didn’t mind. She had Asami’s arms around her and she was breathing real air. If a little sand was the price of heaven, then Korra could put up with it.

Cold metal fingers, sand already embedded in the rusty joints, threaded through Korra’s hair and she hoped that this moment would never ever end. Soon, Korra thought, those fingers would be burning to the touch, and she lavished in their metallic coolness.

They may well have stayed like that – in each other’s arms, hearts singing – all day if there hadn’t been an echoing boom from behind Korra closely followed by a cloud of smoke and sand rushing past them, engulfing them.

Startled, Korra and Asami toppled backwards into the sand.

The wreckage of the shuttle slipped a few yards further down the rocky dune, sending waves of golden sand down the slope, until it was snagged by a jagged tooth of rock. It groaned and creaked, but it didn’t move anymore.

Asami staggered to her feet, dragged her forearm across her face, wiping away the blood and sweat and sand, and whistled.

“Well,” she said, grinning crookedly down at Korra as another plume of fiery smoke began rising up from the ruptured fuselage, “they say any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.” She looked around at the vast, barren landscape. “But, given our location, I’m not so sure about that.”

“Well,” Korra said snidely, trying futilely to brush off the sand Asami had smeared across her cheeks, “you’re the genius engineer. What do you think? Can you get her flying again?”

Asami looked down at Korra, then at the burning wreckage that was strewn across the hillside, and then back at Korra again in exaggerated exasperation, an eyebrow raised, arms crossed, and head cocked to one side.

Korra shrugged and Asami gave her a gentle poke in the ribs with her foot.

“I’ll see if I can salvage something from the navigation computers. See if we can find where Raava was shot down. You still remember the coordinates?” Korra nodded. “Great.”

They trudged up the steep dune, their boots sinking and slipping in the treacherous sand. By the time they had reached the shuttle, Korra had decided that sand was quite possibly the single worst thing in the entire universe.

“With … all the … billions … of billions … they’ve spent on terraforming … this toilet of a galaxy,” Korra panted, “you’d have thought … they’d’ve just got rid … of all the sand.”

Asami grinned and kicked a cloud of sand at Korra. “I love it!” she laughed. She clearly hadn’t gotten over the honeymoon phase of being free.

Korra made a big show of brushing the sand Asami had kicked at her off her jumpsuit, grumbling under her breath. “It gets everywhere,” she muttered, “and it’s irritating. Like you.”

Asami laughed and, after Korra had told her the coordinates, she squeezed back into the cockpit of the shuttle through the ruptured hull. Despite her hatred of the entire planet, Korra couldn’t bring herself to go back inside the shuttle. How could she when at long last real sunlight was touching her skin and wind was tousling her hair and filling her lungs.

Smoke and steam was filling the air, tiny shards of sand and dust were being whipped up into little eddying whirlwinds by the breeze, and the suns were high in the cloudless sky, making Korra’s eye water. She rubbed tentatively at her dead, cybernetic eye with her thumb. Her hands hurt too much to do anything more than lightly dab at the eyelids caked in dried blood, almost sealed shut. She wasn’t too worried about the eye really. It was the implants she was worried about, the implants that let her talk to Raava. If her eye still wasn’t working then did that mean the implants were dead too?

She looked out across the undulating sea of sun-baked sand towards the hazy, shimmering horizon. She didn’t miss the prison – far from it – but she couldn’t help feeling incredibly vulnerable and isolated down here. She could only imagine how Asami must have been feeling. Korra wondered whether Asami, beneath the laughter and almost childish joy and overenthusiasm for sand, was as scared as she was.

Wondering aimlessly around the crash site, every step Korra took sent ripples of blackened sand and scraps of debris skidding down the dune.

The shuttle had carved out a gash in the rocky hillside when it had crashed, a huge, scorched wound in the landscape. A few isolated fires still smouldered in the shuttle’s wake and enormous chunks of warped metal and broken rock jutted out of the sand. Korra watched as the fires around her burnt themselves out and the shards of metal stopped glowing.

Standing almost ankle-deep in the sand, surrounded by the burning wreckage of a prison shuttle, Korra started smiling. A chuckle rose in her throat and she was soon laughing, loudly and teary-eyed.

She looked around at the gently rolling waves of sand again and drunk in the feeling of sunlight and wind on her skin. She threw her head back, spread her arms, and prayed for rain.

Korra’s laughter turned to chest-rattling coughing as a sudden gust of wind filled her lungs with acrid smoke. Spluttering, Korra leant over, hands on her knees, and tried to catch her breath. Inside, she was still laughing ecstatically. She was free! She was with Asami! They were going to find Raava! Everything was going to work out, she was sure of it.

Wiping her eyes on her vest, Korra started trudging back to the front of the shuttle’s smouldering carcass, following her footprints.

She was passing the huge, still steaming thrusters at the rear of the shuttle when something caught her eye, glinting in the sunlight. The churned up sand around the main thrusters had been scorched and blackened by heat and Korra’s boots hissed as she skidded down the sides of the huge, scorched furrow that the shuttle had carved into the dune.

The thrusters above Korra’s head were primitive, each one barely smaller than underground railway tunnels, spewing out steam and giving off an immense heat that took her breath away. They were nowhere near as elegant as Raava’s spirit drive – that was undeniable. Even the most basic of spirit drives cobbled together out of scraps in a junk yard on Ba Sing Se was better than these mass-produced photonic rockets that C-Corp churned out.

Pulling her vest up over her mouth and nose, Korra looked down at the blackened sand and the thing that had caught her eye, shimmering like a star amidst the smoke that filled the deep scar the shuttle had made. She cocked her head to one side and nudged it with her boot.

Hands wrapped in bandages and already hurting, Korra was able to dig the half-buried shard of glass out of the sand without worrying about burning herself. She held it in her bandaged palm like a wounded bird and stumbled away from the huge, smoke-belching thrusters.

The glass fit snuggly into her palm and was more or less teardrop shaped. The narrow, tapered end was jagged, rough, and almost black, while the other end was smooth and clear like ice. In the middle, the glass was cloudy, flecked with dusty gold. Delighting in its delicate, icy smoothness on one side and the almost porous roughness of the half-melted sand on the other, Korra ran her fingertips over the glass’ still-hot surface and held it up to the light. The clear parts of the glass turned to burning gold, and the dusty wisps suffusing the angular teardrop turned to dark storm clouds. The shard seemed to almost capture the sunlight, preserving it like an insect in amber.

Without thinking, Korra dropped the gleaming shard into the pocket of her jumpsuit and waded through the sand back to the cockpit.

“How’s it going?” she asked as she ducked through the tear in the hull.

Asami made a noncommittal noise and gave an apologetic shrug. She was on her knees surrounded by pieces of gutted electronics and wires were hanging down from the control panel above her head like vines. She’d found the emergency toolkit amidst all the mess and the sand was littered with discarded screws and drill bits and she had a screwdriver between her teeth.

Despite the relative coolness inside the upturned shuttle, Asami was already sweating profusely. She had unzipped her jumpsuit a little. The collar of her vest down to her breast bone was dark with sweat. Strands of her dirty, undone hair were clinging to her cheeks and forehead.

Asami smiled around the screwdriver at her and Korra felt herself blush and she looked away awkwardly pursing her lips to fight the huge, love-struck smile she felt begging to spread across her face.

The hatch Korra had tried to punch her way through was hanging open above their heads and an arm was dangling limply out of it. Thick black blood was dripping slowly down the fingers, staining the sand that had poured into the up-turned flight deck. Korra felt sick looking at it. Had she really done that?

Asami followed Korra’s line of vision and took the screwdriver out of her mouth. “Oh, yeah, I had to get one of their wrist mounted holo-displays. I think …” She stood up and took a sudden interest in the screws at her feet. “I think re-entry did them more harm than you did.”

“Hmm.” Korra sat down heavily in the sand and looked at her hands as Asami worked.

“I think it’s done,” Asami said after a few more minutes of tinkering. She sat down next to Korra and showed her the device she’d cobbled together. She pointed to the red dot at the edge of the grid on the flickering screen. “That’s where you were shot down and near where we’ll find Raava. And this …” she said, holding down a button and waiting as the grid dissolved into a blur in an illusion of movement, “is where we are. Probably.”

Korra took the map from Asami and frowned at the screen. “How long a trek is that?”

Asami sighed and ran a metal hand through her dirty hair. “Too long. Three days. Maybe four. And we don’t have the supplies to make that kind of journey.”

Korra looked from the screen to Asami, and back again. “Shit,” she said, quietly.

“Do you want to see if your implants are working again? See if you can call to Raava?”

“It wouldn’t hurt, I guess.”

Asami smiled and got to her feet, a hand on Korra’s shoulder as much to support Korra as to steady herself. She arched her back, fingers interlaced high above her head and groaned as her joints cracked loudly.

“I’m gonna stretch my legs,” she said apologetically, ducking through the hole in the hull. “I’ll be just outside.”

Korra couldn’t blame Asami for not wanting to spend any more time than she had to in the dark husk the shuttle. It was a little too much like their cell. After two years there she’d more than earned her time in the sun.

Korra stayed where she was, scowling at the flickering screen. She felt like it was taunting her.

_Look how close you got! It wasn’t close enough!_

She flung the stupid thing at the far side of the flight deck but she was even more exhausted than she’d realised and it landed pathetically in the sand, just a few feet from where she was sitting.

Sighing, Korra crossed her legs and closed her eyes. She counted her breaths and tried not think about the irritating sand between her toes, the hair plastered to her forehead with blood and sweat, the bracelet chafing her wrist, or her vest clinging to her back between her shoulder blades. She reached out, picturing herself as a beam of blue-white light arcing out over the baking sands of Si Wong. She searched desperately for that familiar presence, that calm electric voice in her head, but there was no answer.

She called out to Raava for what felt like an eternity and, when she finally opened her eyes again, the scorching sunlight that had been streaming into the flight deck was tinged with an orangey pink.

Korra climbed to her feet, brushed the sand off her legs and squeezed outside.

The brighter of the two suns was drawing near to the horizon but the dimmer, more distant, red-tinged sun was still high in the sky.

Asami was sitting in the sand just outside the tear in the hull, her back to the charred metal. She’d taken her boots off and her bare toes were wiggling in the sand. Her orange-clad legs were stretched out in front of her and Korra was suddenly struck by just how garish and awful the jumpsuits really were. She’d hated them in the darkness of their cell and even more in the prison’s harsh-white electric lighting. But down here they seemed to take on a whole new quality of repulsiveness. She wanted more than anything to tear the jumpsuits off, and not for the usual reason.

She couldn’t wait to burn those horrible uniforms.

“Any luck?” Asami asked, looking up at Korra. The entire palette of the still-young sunset seemed to filter through her hair at that moment and Korra smiled despite the bad, but not unexpected news.

“No.”

Korra sat down next to Asami and looked out across the rolling dunes towards the shimmering horizon.

Asami turned and gently placed her work-worn fingers over Korra’s bloody hand. “We’ll think of something,” she said. “We’ll find her. It’ll all work okay, believe me.”

“I …” Korra searched for some sign in Asami’s eyes, some sign that she didn’t believe what she was saying or some small flicker of blame or fear. But as had always been the case, she wasn’t able to look into Asami’s eyes without feeling comfort and serenity and the perfect pain of love. “I believe you.”

Asami smiled, lifted her hand from Korra’s and touched her cheek lightly, brushing sand away with her thumb.

Korra smiled a little and closed her eyes as Asami leant forwards, pressing her lips to her forehead. She kissed her again, lightly, lips touching her eyebrow. Korra felt herself blushing as Asami kissed her a third time, dry lips brushing the dry blood caking the lids of her blind eye.

Korra’s eyes opened, craving more kisses but also aware of the knot of apprehension tightening in her stomach. She couldn’t quite place what it was that was causing that discomfort but it was a strange mixture of disappointment and relief that she felt when Asami drew her hand away from her cheek and sat back against the crumpled hull.

Korra reached out and touched Asami’s hand. Surprised, Korra withdrew. The metal was already hot to the touch. Korra’s fingers brushed the metal again, tentatively, experimentally. Eventually, her fingers closed around the little finger and she held it gently between a sore, bloody finger and thumb. Asami was still looking out across the sand and either didn’t notice or didn’t mind so, smiling, Korra rested her head on Asami’s exposed, scarred shoulder. A piece of the broken silicone casing around her arm was sticking into Korra’s chest and she shifted awkwardly, trying to get comfortable.

Asami waited patiently. When Korra was finally comfortable, Asami ran her fingers through Korra’s sand and wind swept hair.

The suns and the slowly-cooling evening breeze felt wonderful on her skin and the smell of Asami’s sweat soon replaced the stench of smoke and burnt sand.

Korra breathed in deeply, relishing everything she felt – Asami’s fingers, the suffocating heat, even the coarse sand filling her every crevice. They were stranded in an inhospitable wasteland with no food, water, or means of escape. But they were free. Really, truly free and it felt amazing.

Korra felt sluggish and sleepy in the oppressive, dry heat. She was going to suggest going back inside the shuttle where it was marginally cooler but her mouth and lips were dry and she didn’t want to do anything to spoil the moment, far from perfect though it was.

Asami looked out across the dunes at the darkening horizon, the sand buffeted by hot winds and the burnt wreckage scattered around them, and chewed her lip deep in thought.

“Y’know,” she said, almost to herself, still stroking Korra’s hair and cheek, “we might be able to build something out of all this crap. Maybe some kind of … Korra?”

Korra hadn’t heard her. The strain of the last few hours had finally caught up to her and she was dead to the world, snoring on Asami’s shoulder and still clasping her metal finger.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted the first chapter of Cowboy Raava exactly one year ago! Shout out to everyone who's been reading since the beginning! Shout out to everyone who's only just started! Shout out to everyone who said something nice in the comments or just lurked quietly! Shout out to that person at the station who made me pay a £20 fine on Monday! Most of all though, shout out to me!

Korra yawned, long and loudly.

As the haze of broken, disjointed dreams began to fade, she was aware of just four things, each one worse than the one before. The first was that everything hurt. Everything. Her arms and hands, her back and legs, shoulders, ribs, mouth, nose, even her eyelids. Everything hurt.

The second thing she became aware of as she tried futilely to sit up, struggling against her bruised body, was that she was hot. The air was heavy and oppressive and dry. The heat smothered her, leaching what little strength was left in her exhausted body.

Groaning and trying to remember where she was, Korra reached for Asami, but her fingers just clawed at coarse, hot sand. That was the third and the fourth thing. Sand, and no Asami.

Korra felt herself slipping back into the kaleidoscope of fractured dreams and she didn’t have the strength to fight it.

When she woke up again, hours or minutes later, Korra was relieved that at least the pain had ebbed a little. The heat, sand, and no Asami hadn’t changed.

She could feel her clothes clinging to her sweat-sticky skin and wanted desperately to shower. She forced herself to open her eyes, deciding that doing this would be half the battle. As she willed her eyelids open, she heard the sound of muted footsteps in the sand.

Through a heavy eyelid, Korra saw a figure pass in front of a glaring light.

Lips dry and sealed shut from hours of heat and sleep, Korra tried to say something. All that came out was a choked, dusty cough.

“Korra? You awake?” Asami asked in a low, rasping whisper.

Korra half rolled over in the sand and mumbled, “’Sami?”

“Hey, hey, hey, easy,” Asami whispered soothingly, helping Korra to sit up, a strong arm around her shoulders. “Here, have some water.”

A metallic finger touched Korra’s cracked lips, wetting them with warm, dusty-tasting water. Korra licked hungrily at her moistened lips with her dry tongue before Asami lifted something plastic to her lips and a little water filled her mouth, wetting her tongue and her lips and spilling down her chin. After that first sip, Korra gulped down mouthful after mouthful until she was gasping for breath.

“Thank you,” Korra spluttered.

Feeling the life returning to her, Korra blinked the sleep and the sand out of her eyes and sat up without Asami’s help.

Asami was kneeling in the sand next to her. A battered plastic mug half-full with water was in her mechanical hand. Her other hand hadn’t moved from Korra’s shoulder. Korra reached up and placed her fingers over Asami’s, smiling at her and looking around. They were inside the upturned shuttle’s sand-flooded cockpit and the orange-tinged light of setting or rising suns was streaming in through the broken hull.

“Did I fall asleep?” Korra asked, still disoriented.

“Yeah,” Asami said. She looked like she was trying hard to hide just how happy she was to talk to Korra again. “I carried you in here so you wouldn’t cook.”

Korra frowned and rubbed her eye. “How long was I out?”

“About twenty-four hours,” Asami said, handing her the mug again. Korra took it gratefully and drained the rest of the water. “Well, I don’t know how long a Si Wong day is. But, yeah, about a day. However long that is here.”

Korra coughed as, in her hurry, the last dregs of the foul-tasting water went down the wrong way. Asami rubbed her back as Korra tried to speak. “An entire day? That can’t be healthy,” she eventually managed to splutter.

Asami laughed a little. “I think you earned it.”

“Where’d you get the water?” Korra asked, hoping desperately that there was more.

“Distilled it from my pee,” Asami said seriously.

Korra burst into a coughing fit and dropped the plastic cup. “You did what?!”

“I’m kidding! I’m kidding,” Asami laughed, getting to her feet and tousling Korra’s hair. “The water container in the shuttle burst in the crash so I built something to collect dew during the night. That’s probably why it’s got that weird …” Asami grasped in the air for the word she was looking for.

“Dusty?” Korra suggested, pulling her knees up to her chin and wrapping her sore arms around her legs. There was sand trapped under the explosive bracelet strapped to her wrist and it was irritating the hell out of her but she tried to ignore it.

“Yes! It’s probably why it tastes like that. I couldn’t work out how to filter out all the fine dust that gets whipped up by the wind. But give me a couple of days and we’ll be able to bottle this shit up and sell it in upper Ba Sing Se’s swankiest spas for a hundred Yuans a litre.”

“You never fail to completely and utterly amaze me,” Korra said quietly. “You know that right?”

A smile, twisted by embarrassment, spread across Asami’s sunburnt face and she swept her loose, tangled hair over her shoulder exaggeratedly.

Mentally preparing herself for the ordeal of standing up, Korra watched Asami as she systematically pulled the cockpit apart.

Asami had unzipped her jumpsuit, shrugged it off her shoulders, and knotted the elasticated strap Korra had tied to her metal arm around her waist as a belt. Her muscular arm and shoulder were shimmering with sweat. Already beginning to burn, her freckled, dirty cheeks were flushed bright pink from the heat, and her vest was dark and sodden and clinging to her body. Her hair was plastered to her shoulders and back and she had smeared what looked like engine oil around her eyes and across the bridge of her nose and forehead to reduce the glare of the suns.

Korra struggled to think of anything that could rival Asami’s beauty at that moment.

Korra was transfixed and entranced. Asami was sweaty and dirty and tired and so, so beautiful. The longer she drank in Asami’s beauty, the more convinced Korra became that she was the only oasis in the entire desert that could quench her thirst.

She was so transfixed in fact that, when Asami threw aside the twisted piece of piping she’d been examining and glanced down at her, Korra almost jumped out of her skin and hoped Asami hadn’t noticed the dorky, utterly smitten look that must have been plastered over her face.

Korra eventually got to her feet and did her best to brush the sand out of her hair and off her sweaty skin. She stretched and felt a sudden pang of hunger. When was the last time she’d eaten? When was the last time Asami had eaten? Or slept? Or …

“Have you had any water?” Korra asked, picking the empty cup up out of the sand. “I didn’t drink all of it did I?”

“No, no, I’ve had some. Don’t worry.”

“Okay.” Korra raised an eyebrow. The grease smeared across Asami’s face hid the circles that had been darkening under her eyes. “Have you slept?”

Asami made a vague, lilting humming sound and turned back to the pipes she was prying out of the wall.

That meant no.

Korra stumbled through the shifting sand that had spilt into the cockpit and wrapped her arms around Asami’s waist. Lips brushing Asami’s sunburnt shoulder, Korra could taste the salt on her skin.

“I’m okay,” Asami said quietly. “I’ve been busy.” Her voice changed and Korra knew she was smiling when she said, “I’ve been building something.”

Korra’s lips crept along Asami’s shoulder until they reached her neck and tangled, dirty hair tickled her cheek. “Mmm?”

Asami turned around and brushed her fingers around the shell of Korra’s ear. “It feels so good to be making something! I feel like I’m twelve again, in my grubby dungarees, skiving off school and inventing things from the junk in my workshop.”

“You had a workshop when you were twelve?”

Asami made a face. “My dad let me use the shed. Until I burnt it down.”

A silence followed and they smiled at each other. Korra thought they were about to kiss until Asami grabbed Korra’s hand and dragged her outside.

“Come on,” she said, as they skidded down the dune. “I’ll show you!”

The suns were low in the sky. They still seared through Korra’s eyelid though they were starting to turn the sand beneath their feet and the horizon in front of them to a dusty, glowing orange.

Shielding her eyes from the suns with her hand, Asami beamed at Korra and squeezed her hand excitedly. Korra was smiling too. She couldn’t help it. Asami’s smile was infectious and addictive.

If she died on this fucking planet, Korra thought, at least she’d die having known this wonderful, elegant, brilliant woman with the heroin smile. She’d die having loved her.

“Where are you taking me?” Korra asked, out of curiosity rather than frustration, doing her best to keep up with Asami’s stride.

Asami just flashed Korra a grin and said, “You’ll see.”

Korra rolled her eyes and jogged for a few paces until she was walking abreast of Asami.

They were following a winding trail between huge dunes, a trail through the sand that had been churned by feet and ploughed by something heavy being dragged back and forth countless times.

The sand sucked at Korra’s feet, shifting, shrinking, making every step an effort. She was soon grunting and groaning and dripping with sweat. Her hand was slippery and clammy in Asami’s but she didn’t dare let go. Glancing back every so often, Korra quickly lost sight of the wreckage of the shuttle, though they often passed a scorched piece of metal or a chunk of warped plastic lying in the sand.

“Nearly there,” Asami said, encouragingly.

A low ridge of red rock sprawled out in front of them, a hard raw scab on the desert’s soft sandy flesh. Picking her way carefully over and between the wind-worn teeth of rock, Asami held Korra’s bandaged fingers in a delicate grip above her head like a ballroom dancer. The rocks radiated heat, burning Korra’s free hand and shoulders every time she steadied herself.

“I know it’s a desert planet, but I wasn’t expecting it to be this fucking awful,” Korra complained, rubbing her arm where it had been scorched by a particularly hot piece of rock.

Asami chuckled and helped Korra over a shard of broken rock that had yet to be worn smooth by the desert. “I thought you’d been here before.”

“I have, but I had Raava’s air conditioning then,” Korra grumbled. “The only time I set foot outside was when I was bleeding to death.”

Korra caught Asami glancing at her, checking that the memory of Zaheer hadn’t triggered anything. Korra squeezed Asami’s hand and smiled reassuringly.

“I quite like it,” Asami said, returning the squeeze and the smile. “It makes a nice change after being stuck in that freezing prison for so long.”

“Well, I’m not built for this kind of environment. I’m made for ice and snow and freezing winds. I don’t know how you’ve been able to stand this heat! And don’t you dare say it’s because y-”

“It’s because I’m …” Asami said, letting go of her hand and a malicious grin spreading across her grease-smeared face.

“Don’t …”

“… _Hot stuff!_ ” Asami sang loudly and immensely proud of herself, and then, quieter, “… _baby this evenin’_!”

“Fucking damn it, Asami, you shit,” Korra groaned as Asami burst into full shower-stall singing mode. “I swear, I’ll put a scorpion in your jumpsuit.”

Singing and dancing at Korra, Asami made her way up a gently sloping dune. Reaching the top, she did a spin and, with jazz hands and a “Ta-dah!” she announced that they were there. Korra was still at the bottom of the dune, one hand on her hip, the other shielding her eye from the glare of the suns.

“You’ve got sunstroke, haven’t you?!” Korra called up.

Asami sighed exaggeratedly, skidded down the dune, grabbed Korra’s hand, and dragged her up the sandy incline.

At its summit, Asami stopped and gestured down at the rock-strewn valley before them.

Below them, balanced precariously on a platform between two pontoons of cannibalised metal and plastic was what looked to Korra like a jet engine. It was stripped down to its core components and pieces of its smooth, streamlined metal casing were lying scattered across the sand along with burnt exhausts, bent turbine blades, broken valves, dented barrels and canisters and pumps and what looked like half the shuttle. Over the rear of the skinned and filleted engine was a metal platform perched on top of a treacherous-looking scaffold of pipes and bent metal struts.

The whole thing was sheltered from the heat of the suns under a pair of singed parachutes held up by a series of long metal pipes stuck into the sand. Most of the parachutes’ thick cords had been cut away and had been used to lash parts of Asami’s heap of junk together or were lying coiled on the sand waiting to be used. The few cords that remained hung from the nylon awning like thick cobwebs, swaying gently in the sand-stirring breeze, and a few were tied to heavy chunks of metal, anchoring the parachutes against the wind.

“What is it?” Korra asked.

“It’s a sand-sailer,” Asami said with just a hint of pride and her hands on her hips. “Patent pending.”

“You did all this in a day?!” Korra asked, astounded.

“Well …” Asami was almost certainly blushing underneath the dust and grease and sunburn. “It’s not really all that impressive. I still haven’t gotten the engine working and …”

Asami was cut off midsentence when Korra held her cheeks and kissed her deeply. Asami was surprised at first but soon melted into the kiss, letting out an almost relieved breath through her nose and pulling Korra closer.

Asami’s mouth was dry. Korra could feel sand on her cracked lips and Asami’s nose was pressed hard against Korra’s but it was a kiss she would remember to her last, choked, dying breath.

It was their first kiss outside of the prison and Asami was kissing her as though it were the first time in years.

“Sorry,” Korra whispered, pulling away but not taking her hands from Asami’s face. “Sorry, you’re ama-”

A hot metal hand pressed against the small of Korra’s back, pulling her into another kiss, deeper and longer yet somehow calmer than the first.

“Amazing,” Korra said, planting a smaller, final kiss on Asami’s quivering lips. “I was going to say that you’re amazing.” She touched Asami’s nose softly with her thumb. “I didn’t hurt your nose did I? I thought it might be broken yesterday.”

Asami didn’t say anything but she ran a sandy thumb over Korra’s lips and took a long, slow breath, shaking her head almost imperceptibly.

Korra pointed at the jet engine in an attempt to change the conversation, afraid that if she didn’t say something she would pounce on Asami, and she was too hot and tired and achy for that. “Is that ..?”

“The turbine we lost on re-entry?” Asami asked, taking a small step away from Korra and wiping the sweat off her forehead with her arm, staining her wrist black with grease. “Yup. Took me almost half the night to find it. Thank fuck that fainter red sun never completely sets or else I’d never have found it.” Asami touched Korra’s arm and smiled. “Come on.”

They ran down the dune, racing each other and laughing like children.

“If I can get it working,” Asami said when they’d collapsed in a breathless, bruised pile at the bottom of the dune, “and assuming the whole thing doesn’t fall apart, then we should be able to get to where you were arrested in just a few hours. We’re going to find her, Korra!”

Korra smiled and picked herself up. She rubbed her sore neck and limped over to the shade under the parachutes. Asami stretched and yawned but made no sign of getting up out of the sand.

Sitting on one of the pontoons, Korra pulled off her boots and tipped out the sand that had been filling them. The long canoe-shaped pontoon was a patchwork of hammered sheets of metal, empty barrels, chunks of the dirty corrugated plastic that lined the passageways in the shuttle, and it was all held together with the same orange foam that had sealed the airlock shut when they’d boarded the shuttle. Asami must have found a canister of it somewhere amidst the wreckage. Korra touched a globule of the foam curiously and found that it was as hard as concrete.

Although the suns were setting, the heat was still stifling even in the shade of the parachutes.

“How do we steer?” Korra shouted to Asami, still lying stretched out in the sand at the foot of the dune. “Asami? Are you awake?”

Asami sat up suddenly, smoky strands of hair flying away wildly and sand wafting on the air. Korra could hear Asami’s groan from where she was sitting. Asami clambered to her feet and slunk over to the shade under the parachutes and sat down next to Korra. Her exhaustion had clearly caught up to her.

“Gonna use the parachutes,” Asami said, leaning forwards with her head in her hands. She looked up and rubbed her tired eyes, smearing what was left of the engine oil across her hands. “Make some like …” Asami flapped her hands like little wings, “… collapsible sails I guess. They’ll act like big rudders. I came up with a few different ideas but, given our circumstances, I think that has the best chance of working.”

“Will that work?” Korra asked.

“In theory. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“You’re exhausted,” Korra said.

“I’m … yeah,” Asami sighed resignedly.

“It’s getting dark,” Korra said, resting a hand on Asami’s thigh. “Get some sleep.”

Asami shook her head. “Don’t wanna waste the few hours of bearable heat,” she said. “If I get the engine running and set up the sails then we should be ready to go before daybreak.”

“Raava can wait,” Korra said.

Asami shook her head again, covering Korra’s hand on her leg with her own. “We’ve got no food … barely enough water to keep us alive … I swear I keep seeing something in the distance, moving between the dunes …”

“Probably giant sandworms,” Korra said jokingly.

“Very funny, Frank Herbert.”

“Huh?”

Asami sighed. “Never mind.”

“Just close your eyes for an hour,” Korra pleaded in one last attempt to get Asami to rest. “I’ll wake you up before it’s even properly dark. I promise.”

“If I close my eyes I’ll be asleep for the next decade,” Asami said, a tired smile tugging at her cracked lips. She leant forwards and placed a light kiss on Korra’s cheek. “You’re sweet, but we’ve got shit to do.”

“You’re too stubborn for your own good,” Korra sighed.

“Pot. Kettle,” Asami said, a grease-smeared eyebrow raised as she got to her feet.

“Get to work!” Korra snapped jokingly, pointing commandingly at the stripped and dissected jet engine.

“Yes, mistress.”

It got steadily darker and darker after that. Korra was afraid that Asami wouldn’t be able to see properly and hurt herself in the dark. It turned out she needn’t have worried. The night before, Asami had made torches by soaking strips of the prison guards’ uniforms in fuel and wrapping them around pipes she’d taken from the shuttle’s broken water system.

As night fell, Asami threw Korra one of the cigarette lighters made from gum wrappers and batteries that she had always used in prison. Careful to keep the torches away from her fingers and the sagging parachutes and the barrels of spirits-knew-what, Korra touched the smouldering foil wrappers to the sodden strips of cloth and stuck the torches into the sand, encircling their little makeshift camp in a flickering halo.

Korra spent the evening watching the sky turning darker, from lilac and orange to a deep blue stained pink by Si Wong’s second sun, distant and dying. Korra waited, teeth chattering and breath fogging, until the sky was blanketed in stars.

The burning torches smelt awful, but Korra liked the trembling light they threw across the sands. As the night got darker and darker, the oppressive heat of the day began to fade. Korra was soon shivering, glad for the faint warmth the torches gave off.

Rubbing her arms, Korra climbed up onto the platform above the jet engine so she could watch Asami working. Asami was stretched out on the sand underneath the engine and all Korra could see of her were her legs.

“Asami,” Korra said.

Asami’s voice drifted up from under the engine. “Yes?”

Korra began chewing a thumbnail but there was so much sand stuck under it that she stopped, disgusted. She didn’t quite know why she’d said anything at all. Maybe it was the eerie silence of the desert at night or perhaps this all just felt too much like a dream. No matter what it was, Korra knew hearing Asami’s voice would help.

When Korra didn’t answer, Asami wriggled along the sand a little so that she could see her.

“Are you okay? Sweetie?”

Korra couldn’t help smiling at that.

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry.” Korra sighed and looked out across the dark sands to where she imagined Raava might be. “I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you,” she said quietly.

Without Asami, Korra doubted she would have survived the first week of prison, yet alone managed to escape. Even if she had found a way out, found Raava, there was no way she’d have been able to stomach going back to that old solitary life.

Korra probably didn’t realise that the same could be said for Asami. She had been rotting in that prison for two years and hadn’t tried to escape once. And what life would she have had if she had escaped? Without Korra she would have just plunged straight back down the path that had already cost her so much until it finally took everything else.

“So …” Korra said. “Thank you.”

That ‘Thank you’ meant so much. It meant ‘You mean everything to me,’ and it meant ‘I couldn’t live without you.’ It was the closest Korra had ever come to telling Asami that she loved her.

Their eyes met in the torchlight and Korra thought, as Asami held her gaze, that maybe, maybe, she had understood.

Asami sat up and let the bent pipe she’d been holding drop into her lap. “Korra …” she said, voice breaking.

There was something in Asami’s voice, in Asami’s eyes, that made Korra’s skin prickle in anticipation.

“Yes?”

Asami looked away and was silent for a moment.

When she looked up at Korra again, her eyelashes glistened with moisture in the torchlight.

“Do you remember …” Asami said as though she were trying to swallow something. “Do you remember that morning after … after you got out of solitary and we were lying on the floor of our cell and … and you said you’d fallen for me and I made a joke out of it and …”

Unconsciously, Korra uncrossed her legs and sat forwards on the platform, breath bated.

Asami laughed embarrassedly and ran a glistening metal hand through her dirty hair. “Will you run away with me?” she laughed.

Korra relaxed and let out a laugh that was almost a sigh. “I already did.”

Asami looked down at the sand to hide her smile, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

Her dry lips parted and she was about to say something when the engine spluttered and a cloud of smoke was belched out into Asami’s face.

Korra smiled as Asami leapt to her feet, muttering profanities under her breath.

“Do you have a crowbar or something?” Korra asked once Asami’s reprimanding of the jet engine had died down.

“Huh?” Asami asked, breathless and pushing the hair out of her face.

“I want to get this thing off,” Korra said, lifting her wrist and the explosive bracelet that was still fastened to it.

“Oh, umm, try this,” Asami said, throwing a thin but sturdy, foot-long piece of metal. It had been bent and melted in the crash leaving one end tapered to a flat point like a chisel. “That’s what I used to get what was left of the casing off the engine.”

“Thanks.”

Korra made herself comfortable on the platform and got a good grip on the piece of metal. She pressed its sharp edge against the bracelet where the clasp was and tried to steady her hand.

“Are you sure it’s not gonna blow up if I force the lock open,” Korra asked.

Asami pulled her head out of the bowels of the engine and wiped her forehead on her arm. “Yeah, it’ll be fine. The tamper-proof trigger needs a power source and the EMP took care of that. Your eye hasn’t recovered from the surge yet, has it?”

“Nope.”

“Then there’s no way that piece of junk has. So long as you don’t ram that thing straight through the explosive you should be okay. Give me a sec and I’ll help you.”

“No, that’s okay. Thanks. I can’t really help you with the engine and I want to do something, y’know.”

Asami got to her feet and cracked her aching back. “Yeah, I know the feeling.” She waded through the sand over to the dented tub that was slowly filling up with dusty water underneath the sheet of ribbed steel that Asami had turned into a dew-collector. “Don’t stab yourself,” she said before dunking her head into the tub and splashing her face with water.

Korra chewed her lip as she clawed the bracelet open, a millimetre at a time. Progress was slow and painful. After only a few minutes, Korra had already lost count of the number of times she had scraped herself and she was no closer to being rid of the damn thing. She was soon stabbing at the clasp and banging the bracelet on the edge of the platform and swearing loudly.

Sucking a bleeding fingertip, Korra looked up and found Asami was leaning against the jet, arms folded, grinning lopsidedly at her.

Korra scowled at her, rolled her eyes, huffed, hung her head and, finally, held the makeshift crowbar out to Asami.

Asami took it in her metal hand and reached her other hand up to Korra. “Come on down here,” she said.

Korra took her hand and clambered down from the platform. Asami gestured to her to sit down on the sand next to one of the flickering torches.

As Korra made herself as near to comfortable as was possible, Asami walked around their camp a few times, obviously looking for something in the sand.

“Wuh ya luhhing fuh?” Korra asked, her bleeding finger still in her mouth.

“This!” she said triumphantly, tossing a fist-sized rock up into the air and catching it again.

She dropped the rock down next to Korra and dragged an empty barrel through the sand, laying it down on its side in front of Korra and sitting opposite her.

Korra offered Asami her bandaged hand. Asami held it gently and, lifting it to her lips, she kissed Korra’s bleeding finger.

Asami pulled a piece of the plasticy casing from her mechanical arm and slid it in under the bracelet, between the metal and Korra’s wrist.

“If I sneeze then that should stop you from bleeding to death,” Asami said, stroking Korra’s palm.

Korra rested her arm on the overturned barrel so that the bracelet was touching the dented metal. Asami then held the debris they were using as a crowbar vertically, pointing down at the clasp of the bracelet. Korra held it steady with her other hand as Asami lifted the rock in her metal hand high above her head.

Korra squeezed her eyes tightly shut, clenched her jaw, and looked away as Asami brought the rock down with a scream of mechanics hampered by rust and sand.

She felt the impact of the rock striking the tip of the crowbar reverberate through her wrist and up her arm.

“Oh, shit! Your hand’s come off!” Asami gasped.

Korra half-opened an eye and scowled at Asami who was raising her metal hand for another strike, a grin fighting to escape through her pursed lips.

Korra had to fight her every instinct not to whip her hand away or to let go of the sharp piece of metal. It became easier when, after the first few strikes, Korra felt Asami’s fingers in her outstretched hand. Closing her hand around Asami’s fingers and gripping tightly, Korra managed to bring herself to open her eyes and watch as Asami hammered at the bracelet.

Korra could see the bracelet beginning to buckle and bend and sparks were flying through the cold, fire lit air with every blow.

“Almost there,” Asami said through gritted teeth.

With the final blow, a piece of scraped, bent metal was flung through the air, almost hitting Korra in the face.

Asami tossed the rock and the crowbar aside and scrambled to her feet.

“Hang on a second,” she said, vanishing behind the engine.

Korra tugged at the battered bracelet, gnawing at it when it still refused to budge.

“If this blows up in my face,” Korra said as Asami kicked the barrel away and sat down opposite her, “I will never forgive you.”

Asami twirled the small screwdriver she’d found but she didn’t smile. “I won’t let that happen.”

“I know.”

Asami took Korra’s hand into her lap and took her glasses out of her pocket.

She tutted and rolled her eyes. “Fucking hell. Look at that.” The frame of Asami’s glasses was bent almost beyond recognition and both of the lenses had cracked. Asami put the lopsided glasses on and pulled a face at Korra.

“Can you see okay?”

Asami shrugged as she put the glasses back in her pocket. “I’ll manage. I can do it mostly by touch, I think. After everything we’ve been through, I’m surprised they’re this intact.”

Hunched over, intently probing at the locking mechanism with her screwdriver, Asami’s hair spilt down over her face and over her shoulders. A breath of wind wafted over the sand, tugging at Asami’s hair, a few strands tickling Korra’s cheek. Asami’s metal thumb circled Korra’s bedsheet-wrapped palm while she worked and shivers ran down Korra’s spine.

Korra brushed a tangled strand of Asami’s hair behind her ear and as her hand drifted down her cheek to her chin, Asami looked up at her, eyebrows raised questioningly and sunburnt cheeks burning. The flickering torches shimmered like stars in her amber-flecked green eyes and the sweat from the day was still clinging to her skin.

“What?” Asami asked, voice cracking.

Korra leant forwards, lips parted. Just as she felt Asami’s breath on her dry lips, there was a loud _click_ and the bracelet fell away from her wrist into the sand.

Korra looked down in surprise and then back up at Asami when, after a few seconds nothing had blown up.

“Did you mean to do that?”

Asami looked just as surprised as Korra. “Let’s … let’s just say I did.”

Korra lunged at Asami, sending her sprawling on the sand and planted kisses across her forehead and down her nose.

“You’re amazing,” Korra whispered, holding Asami’s cheeks between her hands, her cracked bottom lip brushing Asami’s cracked upper lip.

“I know, but, darling, if we do it here then I’m gonna get sand in my …” Asami raised her eyebrows meaningfully making Korra laugh.

Flicking the hair out of her eyes, Korra sat back so that she was straddling Asami’s hips and pushed the bottom of Asami’s dirty vest up and danced bloody fingers over her stomach.

“If …” Korra said quietly, drawing across Asami’s stomach with her fingertips. “If when we find Raava …”

“She’ll be fine,” Asami said, blowing a strand of hair away from her mouth.

“If she’s too badly broken …”

“She won’t be. I’ll be able to fix her. She’ll be fine.”

“But … if she is. What are we going to do?”

Asami pushed herself up onto her elbows and the defiant strand of hair fell back to her mouth. “I don’t know. We’ll manage. I’ll turn the wreckage of the shuttle into a mansion.”

“With a pool?” Korra asked.

“I can’t promise that there’ll be much water. But, yeah, sure.” Asami smiled. “Anything for you.”

Korra leant forwards and kissed her. “You’re the best.”

Asami hummed happily and flopped back into the sand. Korra rolled off her and lay down next to her.

“You want to keep this?” Asami asked, handing the broken bracelet to Korra.

“What?” Korra laughed, fiddling with the bracelet. “As a souvenir of my terrific time in prison?”

“It’d look great on your mantelpiece.”

Korra rolled her eyes and stuffed the crumpled piece of metal into a deep pocket of her jumpsuit. Her fingers brushed against the shard of glass she had found the previous day and something else that she didn't immediately recognise.

“Huh, look what I found,” Korra said, holding the bent cigarette up to the light. “I’d forgotten that was there.”

Asami’s eyes lit up and she snatched it out of Korra’s hand before she could blink. She crouched down next to one of the torches, holding the tip of the cigarette as close to the snapping flame as she dared. She held it tenderly and carefully as though she were holding an injured baby bird in her metal fingers.

Less than an inch of the cigarette was turned to ash by the fire and Asami sighed happily as she breathed out a thin stream of smoke.

“I thought you’d given up,” Korra said, sitting down next to her.

Asami smiled. “I have.”

Korra pinched her and Asami handed the cigarette to her.

Stretched out on the sand, side by side and looking up at the stars, they shared the foul cigarette, trying to make it last as long as possible.

Asami coughed after her third or fourth drag. “That’s awful,” she spluttered handing it to Korra. “You finish it.”

“You sure?”

Asami coughed again. “Yeah. Did they always taste that bad?”

“Prison cigarettes of cigarettes in general?”

“Prison cigarettes.”

Korra nodded as a delicate ring drifted up out of her mouth and faded into nothingness. “Yeah. They were pretty bad. Though I think this one’s from that first pack Kai gave me so it’s probably pretty stale.” Asami raised an eyebrow, perplexed. “The night I kissed you and you cut my hair. You stuck a cigarette behind my ear.”

“And you never smoked it?” Asami asked, a smile spreading across her face.

Korra shrugged. “I guess I saved it as like a memento of that night or something and forgot about it.”

“But … you must have changed jumpsuits like … a hundred times since then,” Asami said. She had evidently changed her mind about how bad the cigarette was because she gently pried it out of Korra’s fingers and took another long, slow breath of smoke.

“Okay, I guess, when I say I _think_ it might be that cigarette,” Korra said, avoiding eye contact, “what I should really say is that it is absolutely definitely that cigarette.”

Asami’s smile trembled and she kissed Korra, her mouth full of smoke.

“You want the rest?” Asami asked as their lips parted.

“Okay.”

As Korra took a last, long drag on the smouldering stub, Asami wrapped an arm around her, laying her head on Korra’s shoulder.

“Are you gonna sleep now?” Korra asked.

Asami groaned like a teenager being dragged out of bed and ground the heel of her palm into an eye.

“Come on,” Korra crooned, stroking Asami’s sand-dusted hair. “Look at you. You’re exhausted.”

Asami sat up, shaking the sand out of her hair. “I’m fine. I want to get this thing finished before dawn.”

Korra sighed. “Fine.”

“Don’t pout,” Asami chuckled, tapping Korra’s mouth with a finger. “You look very pretty when you do it though. Are you blushing?”

“Screw you.”

Smirking, Asami got to her feet, brushed the sand off her legs, and cracked her knuckles. “I am absolutely sick to death of that engine. Wanna help me take the chutes down?”

“Yeah, alright,” Korra said, flicking the glowing cigarette end through the air.

Before the rosy-fingered dawn had crept into the sky, Korra and Asami had taken down the parachutes and sliced them up using shards of twisted metal. Lashing them to retractable masts made of pipes, they made fan-like sails that, when the masts were collapsed and lying flat along the pontoons, looked like the singed wings of a giant moth.

Korra spent most of the night ignoring the pain in her hands as she knotted the pieces of the parachute cord together. Asami made countless trips back and forth between the sand-sailer and the wreckage of the shuttle so, for most of the night, Korra had no one to talk to.

By daybreak, she was done, and Asami fashioned the ropes into a complicated rigging which, from the platform over rear of the engine, would hopefully be able to control the sails and steer the sailer.

While Asami continued her work on the jet engine, Korra sat on the platform amid the web of cords, nursing her wrist where it had been rubbed raw by the bracelet. She was watching in rapture as Asami’s vest became gradually more and more sodden with sweat as the suns beat down on them.

Asami glanced up at her, narrowing her eyes. “I can feel your eyes ravishing me.”

“Sorry,” Korra said, feeling herself blushing.

“I didn’t say stop,” Asami smirked, tugging at her sweat-stained vest. “How’s your wrist?”

“Sore.”

Asami groaned and dragged her fingers through her hair. “This heat is getting ridiculous.”

“I’ll get you some water,” Korra said, pushing herself off the sand-sailer and landing ankle deep in the sand.

“Nah, it’s okay,” Asami said, wiping the sweat off her forehead, jaw, and neck. “We’ve gotta make it last.”

Korra ignored her and trudged over to what was left of the water that had been collected during the night. Asami had been using a panel of soot-stained plastic as a sled to transport parts over the sand and, now that she had everything she needed, the plastic sled was protecting the water from the suns.

Korra kicked the plastic aside and forgot why she had come over to the tub of murky water. The suns were being reflected in the water, oscillating ripples making them lose their shape as though they were dissolving in the water. Korra watched the choppy surface of the water for a few minutes before wondering why on earth it was doing that.

There shouldn’t have been any ripples but she was too hot and tired and hungry and thirsty to give even half a shit.

Having filled the battered plastic mug, Korra replaced the piece of plastic over the water.

As Korra handed the water to Asami, their fingers touched and Korra couldn’t help smiling a little.

“Thanks,” Asami said in a whisper, voice strained by thirst. She downed the water in one gulp, pulled a face, and wiped her chin with her forearm.

“Can I give you a hand?” Korra asked, stepping up over a pontoon and scowling at the stubborn engine.

“Yeah,” Asami said, trying to cockily twirl a length of metal tubing but dropping it in the sand. “Shit. Okay. When I’ve attached this thing, can you turn that valve over there by your ear to the left?”

“This one?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, say when.”

Asami released a small jet of the orange foam into the inner workings of the engine, whipped her hands away and nodded to Korra. Pulling the valve to the left, Korra felt a thrumming run through her and a choked purring from inside the engine cut through the silence of the desert.

“Is it working?” Korra asked, hopefully.

Asami bent down, peered at something, darted around to the other side of the jet, tapped a dial, and kicked something. The purring turned to a roar and Korra winced. The spinning blades at the front were whipping the sand up into a frenzy and she could feel the entire sailer shaking.

“It’s almost there!” Asami shouted. She kicked the dented barrel again. It was one of several that had been bolted onto the pontoons and connected to the engine with lengths of flexible metal tubing making the jet look like it was undergoing open heart surgery. “It’s not taking in the …” Asami was drowned out by the engine and she waved to Korra to turn the valve back again.

The din died down again and Asami ran her hand through her hair.

“We’re almost there,” she said, smiling. “Won’t be long.”

The parachutes now torn to shreds and made into sails, there was nothing to shield Korra and Asami from the suns. As they worked together on the stubborn jet engine, the heat soon became unbearable. Asami was having to do most of her tinkering with her metal hand, simply because the engine had become too hot for her to touch it with her left hand.

Korra’s tongue was dry and heavy and her stomach was growling loudly every few minutes. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten. Asami almost jumped out of her skin when Korra’s stomach first began rumbling but her stomach was soon echoing Korra’s.

“Do you think they’d deliver a pizza out here?” Asami asked, laughing as she wiped an oily piece of metal on her vest.

“Weren’t there any emergency rations or anything in the shuttle?” Korra asked.

Asami shook her head. “I looked but didn’t find any. If there was anything, it’s either burnt or buried.”

“We could eat beetles or lizards or something,” Korra suggested, far from enthusiastic about the idea.

Asami pulled a face and, if she hadn’t been so covered in brown blood and black engine oil and scorched by the suns, she would have turned green. “I think I’d rather die than do that. Screwdriver, please. Oh, no, sorry, the crosshead one.”

Korra tossed aside the shard of metal they were using as a flathead screwdriver and passed her the one that had been in the shuttle’s rather disappointing emergency toolkit.

Korra chewed her cracked lip and pushed the sweat-slick hair out of her eyes. “I haven’t actually seen any animals yet.”

Asami frowned and tapped her pale lip with the worn-down tip of the screwdriver. “Neither have I.”

“Is there any life on Si Wong?” Korra asked, almost too lethargic to speak. “I know they gave up trying to terraform.”

“I’m sure there’s life here somewhere,” Asami said, screwing a long piece of piping onto the side of the engine. “They say there’s life on every settled planet, even the ones that didn’t terraform properly. There’s probably something at the poles or underground.”

“I haven’t even seen any cacti,” Korra said, scanning the hazy, barren sands in the distance.

There was very little wind that morning and Korra didn’t have the strength to fan herself. She could almost feel the sweat evaporating off her skin.

“I’m pretty sure you’re …” Asami blinked slowly and sighed. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to eat in the desert anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Eating makes you need to poop and … I dunno … I think you lose a lot of water in your poop or something.”

“Speaking of shit …” Korra said. “How much longer do you think this fucking engine is gonna take?”

Asami sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I really don’t know. I didn’t think it’d take this long. I don’t know what’s wrong. It must have been more badly damaged in the fall than I thought. I hope the combustion chamber isn’t cracked.”

“Have a break,” Korra suggested.

Asami opened her mouth and looked like she was about to object until she sighed and her shoulders relaxed. “Yeah … alright.”

Korra made Asami stretch out on the sand in the small sliver of shadow cast by the sailer’s furled sails, head resting in her lap. Korra had found a small scrap of burnt fuselage half-buried next to her in the sand and, once she’d shaken it clean, she gently fanned Asami’s face.

“Feeling better?” Korra asked after a while. “Because my arm’s getting tired.”

Asami made a noise somewhere between a hum and groan. She had her hands over her eyes, shielding herself from the glare of the suns, but a slight smile tugged at her dry lips.

“Please don’t stop!” Asami whimpered. “This is heavenly!”

“I feel like I should be feeding you grapes and …”

“Organising an orgy.”

“I was gonna say filling a bath tub with milk,” Korra laughed, “but sure, why not. You’re already sweaty.” Korra cracked her stiff neck and started fanning herself. “I remember just after we found Naga, she used to get really hot in the house. We tried giving her cold baths and feeding her ice cubes. My dad even tried shaving her. She did _not_ like that. Then one morning we just couldn’t find her. We looked everywhere for her. Spent the whole day searching. Turned out she’d worked out how to open the freezer and had been in there the whole time, spooning a tub of ice cream.”

Asami laughed through her nose and opened her interlocked fingers a crack so that she could look up at Korra. “We should get a dog,” she said, musingly.

Korra wasn’t sure why, but she felt as though Asami had just proposed to her.

“What kind of dog?” she asked, fanning Asami again.

“I’ve always liked corgis,” Asami said, closing her fingers over her eyes again. “They’re very intelligent and super cuddly. My parents never let me have a dog though.”

“Why not?”

“You know how sometimes parents give their kids goldfish to prove they’re responsible enough to have a dog or a cat or whatever?”

“Yeah.”

“I was _not_ responsible enough.”

Korra leant forwards, running a sandy thumb across Asami’s grimy cheek. “What happened?”

“Let’s just say that seven year olds, remote-controlled toy cars, fireworks, and angelfish do not mix.”

Korra laughed so hard her eyes began to water and she got sand in her eyes when she tried to dry them.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she hissed.

“What’s wrong,” Asami asked, sitting up, hair spilling down her back.

“Sand in my fucking eyes,” Korra spat, teeth clenched.

Korra tried to keep her eyes as wide as possible without blinking to force as much water into her eyes as possible, but with the suns beating down on them, reflecting off Asami’s arm and the pieces of metal scattered over the sand and built into the sailer, just keeping her eyes open was harder than she would have expected.

Asami knelt in front of her, tenderly touching her face with her gentle fingertips. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’s okay.”

Eyes stinging, Korra ground her teeth. Asami brushed carefully around the edge of Korra’s eyelids with the tip of her little finger.

“There you go,” Asami eventually whispered soothingly. “Got most of it out.”

Korra sniffed. “Thank you.”

“Ah!” Asami exclaimed, grabbing Korra’s wrist. “Don’t rub it.”

Korra made a face and Asami laughed before kissing her pout away with a feather-soft peck on the lips.

“What was the fish called?” Korra asked as Asami’s grip on her wrist drifted down to her blood-stained, bandaged hand.

“Liu,” Asami said. “After Liu Yang. The first Asian woman in space.”

Korra laughed despite her stinging eyes. “What’s she got to do with a fish?”

“I don’t know!” Asami laughed. “I was seven! Maybe I just wanted the fish to have a role model. Something to aspire to.”

Korra snorted with laughter and brushed a stray strand of hair out of Asami’s face, brushing her cheek with a barely-scabbed knuckle.

“I think it’s cute,” Korra said.

Asami smiled and leant forwards. “You’re cute.”

Korra tutted, fingers threading through Asami’s hair, slipping behind her neck and pulling her closer.

Suddenly, Asami’s eyebrows arched and her eyes widened.

“What?” Korra asked.

“I know what’s wrong with it!” Asami gasped, leaping to her feet, hurdling the pontoon and vanishing from sight under the sailer.

Korra slowly, achingly, picked herself up and sat on the pointed end of a pontoon, looking out across the undulating golden ocean.

At first Korra thought it was just the sand in her eyes or a hallucination, but there was definitely something on the horizon. She squinted, wishing her cybernetic eye would start working again, and tried to work out what it was that was causing the blur just below the skyline.

It was as though a geyser were going off miles away, throwing a fan of sand up across the desert. It must have been the heat distorting the light or shifting sands, but Korra thought she saw a dune vanish in the distance.

She was about to say something, to ask Asami if she could see the plume of sand too, when the engine spluttered into life throwing her off the pontoon onto her face. The high-pitched whirring turned into a roar as the blades became a blur, funnelling the sand between the pontoons into a whirlwind. The engine gasped as a spurt of sand was thrown out followed by a deafening peal of thunder and a wave of thick acrid smoke drifted over the sand from the back end of the engine.

“She ain’t pretty, but I think she’ll do the job,” Asami shouted over the sound of the engine, running towards Korra. “Should we wait until nightfall? It might be cooler and I have a feeling the turbine’s going to overheat. And by ‘overheat’, I mean ‘burst into flames’.”

Korra said, or rather yelled, that she thought it’d be better to get going as soon as they could. They only had a few drops of water left from what they had collected during the night and early morning. They had no food, no shelter now that the parachutes had been turned into sails, and if the wreckage of the shuttle were to be found by an Empire patrol or a band of scavengers or whatever was making that spout of sand in the distance, they had no way of defending themselves.

Asami nodded her agreement, scooped up the navigator she had cobbled together and tossed the jerrycan of water they had been saving to Korra.

“Pull that lever again!” Asami yelled as she clambered up onto the platform and grabbed hold of one of the parachute ropes.

Korra pulled on her boots and leapt up onto the sailer. The can of water stowed between a pair of fuel drums, she fumbled at the valve. When the valve eventually gave in and twisted a fraction of an inch, the engine howled. The whirlwind of sand filled the air, scouring Korra’s skin and an enormous flood of spark-flecked smoke spewed out of the jet. The sailer lurched forwards in the sand and, clinging to the rigging, Korra tried desperately not to let herself be thrown against the scorching engine next to her.

“Give her some more!” Asami shouted down to Korra.

Korra gave the valve another yank and before she knew what had happened, they were cresting a steep dune with a stomach-turning jolt.

Gripping the nylon cable for dear life, sand and wind and smoke taking her breath away, Korra couldn’t help grinning.

She couldn’t hear anything over the wind in her ears and the screech of the turbine, but Korra was sure that she was laughing.

She did her best to look back at Asami without losing her footing. She was standing atop the platform over the back of the engine, feet spread wide and taut parachute cords wrapped around her forearms and wrists. Her face was twisted against the wind and sand and her hair was flying wildly behind her.

Korra caught Asami’s eye fleetingly and felt herself smiling even wider.

Korra couldn’t believe it. In less than two days, running on empty and with nothing but junk to work with, Asami had built this!

She really was amazing.

A column of twisted red rock loomed up at them on their left as they skimmed across the sand, and Asami tugged at the cord spooled around her metal arm. The right-hand mast was flung out, cords snapped taught, and the sail opened like a fan, catching the wind in an instant. Sunlight streamed through the canvas and Korra felt the rigging around her thrumming like violin strings. The mast and the nylon sails groaned and a wave of sand was thrown up to their right as the sailer drifted away from the pillar of rock.

Asami relaxed the taut cord and the wind forced the sail back into place and, as the sailer stopped turning, Korra heard her shrieking in triumph.

Gradually growing used to the movement of the sailer, Korra plucked up enough courage to lean off the side of her pontoon, gripping the rigging tightly. She threw her head back, relishing the bone-chilling wind.

She looked back the way they’d come, wondering if she would be able to see the wrecked shuttle. It must have been miles already, she thought, watching the shower of sand being thrown up either side of the sailer as it cut through the sand, slicing a wake through the desert and leaving a swirling trail of dust and smoke behind them. She couldn’t see the shuttle, but she did think she could make out that faint fan of sand being thrown into the air. Was it bigger now or just closer? It couldn’t be closer, not at the speed they were going. Korra felt her blood run cold despite the heat.

She was knocked back to reality by a sudden burst of heat hitting her in the face. A mane of fire, dirty-yellow and black, had erupted from the front of the jet, lashing and licking at the tarnished metal and escaping in violent bursts from vents around its mouth.

Korra shielded her face against the heat and manoeuvred herself back onto the pontoon. She reached for the jerrycan of water but Asami yelled something. Korra looked up, perplexed, and saw that Asami was gesturing wildly at a bent pipe stuck through the platform supporting the engine. Asami mimed something that looked like she was pulling a dagger out of a chest and Korra nodded.

She edged carefully along the sailer, dodging the snarling tongues of flame that leapt at her. The sailer struck a small rock, half-submerged in the sand and Korra lost her footing. She actually heard Asami’s shout over the mechanical storm raging inside the engine.

As Korra fell, her fingers closed around the end of the pipe she had been trying to reach. Without trying to get to her feet, Korra clung to a deep dent in one of the scraps of fuselage that had patched a hole in the patchwork pontoon, and pulled on the pipe as hard as she could.

The front of the platform that connected the two pontoons had once been a section of one of the shuttle’s smaller wings. When Korra pulled the pipe out that was embedded in its exposed levers and pistons, the manoeuvring flap of the amputated wing was released and it dropped down like a snowplough, dousing the sailer with a tidal wave of sand.

Spluttering for air as the wall of sand collapsed over her, Korra felt something strike the improvised plough and, with the ear-splitting sound of tearing metal, the wing flap buckled and was ripped off its hinges taking part of the platform under the engine with it.

The violent wave petered out and Korra shook the inch-thick layer of sand out of her hair. She looked up at the engine and sighed in relief. It was spluttering and gasping for air, spitting out clouds of smoke and sand, but the fire had been smothered.

Korra carefully got back to her feet and gave Asami a thumbs up. Asami grinned and pulled on one of the cords, opening up the right-hand sail.

As they rocketed over the sand, a faint shadow began to appear on the horizon, gradually creeping up the sky. Squinting against the suns, Korra watched anxiously as the enormous, looming bank of clouds grew larger and larger in the distance. Maybe that was what she had seen earlier, a distant storm, not a fountain of sand.

“Asami!” Korra shouted over the wind and the roar of the engine. “Please tell me we’re not going in there!”

“What is it?” Asami asked, securing the cables and leaping down next to Korra.

“It’s a storm!” Korra shouted.

“Sandstorm?” Asami asked, adjusting a valve on the steaming engine and reconnecting a tube that had been shaken loose.

“Electric storm! But yeah! There’ll be a lot of sand! Lightning too!”

Asami looked down at the navigator. She slapped it, waited for the flickering screen to adjust, and groaned. “Looks like we’re taking a detour!”

Asami finished tending to the engine and clambered back up onto the platform. Despite all her skilful manoeuvring, they were only just able to outrun the storm. They almost tore the sailer apart but they were able to keep just barely out of the storm’s clutches, always keeping the wall of black clouds and swirling sand and flickering lightning a few miles away.

The sky had become almost completely grey. Wind stung their eyes and played havoc with the sails but, as the sunlight poured down through the cracks in the cloud blanketing the sky, Korra couldn’t help thinking it was a strangely, terrifyingly beautiful sight.

The desert appeared to plateau gradually, the dunes became smaller and more regular, and it became easier to manoeuvre.

Asami leapt down from the platform and gripped Korra’s shoulder.

“Korra!” she bellowed over the noise of the jet and the rumbles of thunder behind them. She pointed up at the platform. “Can you keep us on this heading?”

Korra nodded. “I think so!” She’d seen Asami doing it for a while now and piloting a sand-sailer made out of salvaged junk was hardly on a level with flying something like Raava.

Asami smiled, her face still serious. “I’m gonna see if I can get some more speed! I’m not sure how much longer we can outrun the storm like this!”

Korra was clambering up onto the platform when the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She paused and, though she didn’t know why, she turned around, looking past Asami, out at the ocean of sand stretching out to the horizon before them.

A shriek tore through the thunderous din of the jet and the approaching storm.

Korra’s blood froze.

Asami grabbed hold of the rigging to steady herself and looked questioningly at Korra. “The fuck was that?!” she yelled.

Before Korra could answer, a cloud of sand erupted in front of them and the sky was eclipsed by a titanic, distended maw. Row upon row upon row of monolithic teeth bore down on them through the clouds of sand. The cavernous, razor-filled mouth snapped shut just a few feet from the sailer, a shockwave of sand almost tipping them over.

Another shriek, almost gleeful, sliced through the air as a monstrous, scaly head vanished under the sand.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Asami yelled in Korra’s ear as the sailer span wildly.

A fin the size of a concrete tower block cut through the sand behind them, the sand swelling and collapsing and swelling again as the creature circled them under the sand.

Another shriek and another fin erupted through the sand.

“It’s fucking toying with us!” Korra yelled.

“What do we do?” Asami asked, trying desperately to pull the sailer out of its spin.

The masts groaning and several sections of sail tearing, the sailer righted itself and bounded over the vast mounds of sand that had been churned up by their attacker.

Korra shuddered as a crash of thunder and another shriek merged into one primeval howl.

“In there,” she said. Asami raised an eyebrow, in confusion. Korra pointed at the storm clouds raging behind them and creeping steadily, inexorably closer. “If it has half a brain it wouldn’t dare follow us in there!”

Asami was hesitant at first but her expression softened and she sighed as though to say ‘I trust you’. She pulled on a cord, jaw clenched, forcing the sailer into a sharp turn just as a deep gorge was cut through a dune in front of them by a blur of dark scales and thrashing fins.

The engine screamed in fury as the storm rushed towards them. The air crackled with electricity and the last rays of sunlight were blotted out by the clouds and were replaced by the erratic flashes of lightning.

The storm was drawing up the sand, stripping the desert bare like a black swarm of vultures. The sand suspended in the foothills of the storm had stained the clouds a dirty gold that pulsed with light.

Korra clung to the sailer for dear life, sand and wind stinging her eyes and clawing at her flesh like ragged fingernails. Craning her neck around, her heart sank. A narrow and knife-like wave of sand like the wake of an enormous battleship, was drawing rapidly closer and closer. Almost in slow-motion, the wave broke in two, parting to reveal a blunt snout, blind pale eyes, and a tattered sail-like fin running the creature’s entire length. The mouth cracked open, baring crystalline-black teeth and unleashing a repulsively sweet gust of hot breath.

The dune they were climbing dropped away suddenly and the sailer arced through the air, the hot carnivorous maw opening wide inches behind them.

Landing with a bone-jarring smash of buckling metal and breaking plastic, the sailer skidded and bounced before finally righting itself. A wave of sand crashed over them as the hideous worm-like squaloid landed violently, thrashing wildly.

It wasn’t playing with its food anymore.

This close to the storm, it was getting almost impossible to see. The wind was spewing sand through the air and all but the very weakest rays of sunshine had been swallowed by the clouds. So by the time Korra and Asami had seen the smoke-like tendrils of sand twisting around the ridge of rock ahead of them, it was already too late.

Screaming at the strain, Asami tried to open a sail but she was exhausted and fighting against the force of the storm. The mast bent like a sapling before it snapped and vanished, sail and all, into the gaping, serrated mouth that was snapping at their heels. As the mast broke, Korra leapt up onto the platform and put an arm around Asami’s waist. Bracing herself, Korra threw herself and Asami with her into the air.

The sound of the sailer smashing into the rock was drowned out by the storm, but Korra watched in horror as it shattered. Many of the chunks of the metal and plastic and rock that were thrown into the air never came back down again, caught up in the ravenous winds and vanishing into the melee of sand and lightning.

The jet was still roaring, turbine blades whirring furiously and smoke spewing into the storm-torn air but the rest of the sailer was in shattered pieces, scattered over the dissolving desert.

Asami was lying in the sand a few feet from Korra. She couldn’t tell if she was awake, let alone alive. Getting unsteadily to her feet, Korra limped over to her. The storm still hadn’t quite swallowed them but, buffeted by the wind and the mercurial sand beneath her feet, Korra could barely move. She had almost reached Asami when the ground shook beneath her feet and she fell.

Shrieking in triumph, the creature reared up out of the sand to its full height, poised to strike like a snake, lightning shimmering off its sand-polished carapace. Its mouth opened, unfurling into five parts like the petals of a demonic, shark-toothed mockery of an orchid. Thick saliva swirled in the wind and hissed and bubbled on the shifting, wind-torn sand.

Heart in her throat, veins flooded with adrenaline, Korra thrust her bleeding hand into the pocket of her jumpsuit. Her fingers closed around twisted metal and, taking a deep breath, she summoned all her strength. Screaming into the wind, she threw the broken bracelet at the thrumming jet engine. The small piece of metal vanished in the sand-filled air and Korra leapt at Asami, covering her body with her own.

Eyes clenched tightly shut, Korra cradled Asami’s head in her arms beneath her as the gaping, ravenous mouth plunged down at them.

The heat of the jet exploding into a ball of flame hit Korra like a train. It took her breath away and she felt the force of it wash over her but she barely heard it over the storm and the creature’s hissing cries of pain and fury.

Korra stroked Asami’s hair, whispering in her ear, and felt her chest rising and falling softly under her.

She stayed like that long after the creature had slunk away and the fire from the exploded jet engine had been beaten down to dying yellow butterflies by the wind.

“Korra?” Asami whispered.

Korra choked back tears and let go of Asami.

“You’re okay?!” Korra shouted over the crashing storm that was threatening to engulf them at any second.

Asami nodded, squinting against the stinging sand. “We need to find shelter!” Korra helped her to her feet and looked around. “We have time to build something out of … oww … what’s left of the sailer?!”

Korra looked up at the wall of cloud and sand that arched up over their heads. “Yeah,” she croaked.

The shoulder of rock that had torn the sailer to pieces ended up saving their lives. The rock provided them with a sturdy windbreak so they could use the wreckage from the sailer to make a small lean-to shelter against the storm. They wedged panels of the shuttle’s fuselage against the rock, securing them with pipes stuck into the sand, shattered pieces of rock, chunks of the destroyed engine, parachute cords, and covered the gaps in their shelter with the few sections of the sail that hadn’t been consumed by the storm or the creature.

They had only just finished when, after a spilt second of calm, they were suddenly in the storm.

As they were pelted with rain and wind and scoured by sand, Korra threw her head back, spread her arms and laughed. Water poured over her face and down her neck, drenching her dry, dusty skin.

“Dufresne!” Asami yelled from the opening of their makeshift shelter, holding a flap of parachute cloth aside. “Are you done?!”

Korra smiled and ran through the sodden, muddy sand. She dived past Asami into the shelter as a bolt of lightning cracked the sky.

Asami had managed to save the navigator so their little metal and nylon igloo was cast in a flickering, electric glow. The only other light was the lightning streaming through the cracks in the metal and the parachutes.

The wind howled and the sand and rain fell like hail against the metal above their heads. Drips of water trickled down the sheets of metal and Korra caught some in her hand. Not much seeped into their shelter but Korra managed to collect enough in her hands to wet their lips and wash some of the grime and dust off their faces.

Korra thought several times that their shelter would be torn to pieces. Every rock that was flung by the storm against the metal above them, she was sure was going to be the one that crushed them. But despite her fears, the shelter held.

Sitting in the sand, Korra leant back against the wall of rock and ran her hands through her rain-sodden hair, relishing how it felt after so long in the prison and then in the desert.

Asami leant against Korra, resting her head against her chest and holding her arm.

Korra stroked Asami’s hair and whispered, “Try to get some sleep.”

Asami didn’t argue this time and closed her eyes but, after a few minutes of deafening, storm-filled silence, Asami started humming quietly. The hum soon became a whisper, until she was singing softly under her breath, barely audible over the wind and rain and thunder. Her voice was husky from the heat and the dust and, as her singing always had been, was off key and she was mumbling her way through half the lines as though she could only half remember then.

It wasn’t a song that Korra recognised which was odd considering the fact that up until then, Korra would have sworn that Asami’s entire repertoire consisted solely of four and a half poorly remembered Donna Summer songs which she would sing over and over in the showers, volume and enthusiasm making up for the lack of variety.

From the few snatches she managed to catch, Korra thought it was a love song, though Asami’s low scratchy voice gave it a distinctly melancholy feel.

There was one part that Korra did manage to hear over the sound of the storm and her own breathing, still heavy and shallow.

“I like dreamin’ …” Asami sang, voice soft and sad and laden with longing, “… ‘cos dreamin’ can make you mine.”

Asami didn’t seem to realise she was singing. Maybe she couldn’t even hear herself with the storm outside.

In a sudden, deafening flash of lightning, Asami flinched and opened her eyes. She glanced up at Korra to make sure she was okay and must have seen the wide-eyed look on Korra’s face because she stopped mid-word and, in the next bolt of lightning, her scorched cheeks had turned even redder.

“Don’t stop,” Korra said, almost pleadingly as the storm grew louder outside.

Tangled, sweat and rain slick locks fell across Asami’s face as she ran her metal hand through her hair. “I didn’t even realise I was singing,” she laughed awkwardly, voice almost swallowed by the wind.

“It’s nice,” Korra said.

“My mum used to sing it to me when I couldn’t sleep.” Asami closed her eyes and laid her head against Korra again.

The wind howled and tore at the parachute cloth. The rain pounding on the metal grew ever louder and louder and the thunder crashed all around them. Korra held Asami tighter and Asami ran metal fingers up and down Korra’s tattooed arm, but she didn’t start singing again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter was an ordeal and a half. If I never have to write anything even remotely like an action scene ever again it'll be too soon. Nothing but fluff and angst from here on out! And maybe smut.
> 
> If you haven't read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Earth Empire and want more awkward action then what are you waiting for?!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a particularly long chapter but I am supposed to be writing my dissertation at the moment. And by that I mean I'm not actually writing it, I'm just supposed to be.

Korra had managed to catch a few minutes of restless sleep during the storm. Asami didn’t sleep a wink. She’d spent the night listening to Korra’s quiet heartbeat which, even with her head resting on her chest, was barely audible over the raging storm outside.

Whenever Korra was woken by the storm and stroked Asami’s hair drowsily, Asami would wish more than anything that she could fall asleep in Korra’s arms but it was no use. She had been cold and thirsty and the storm had crashed and bellowed around them dashing any hope of falling asleep. Her eyelids had hurt and she’d felt exhausted to her marrow but she just couldn’t sleep.

Once the storm had died down and before the suns rose, Korra had fallen into an almost peaceful sleep. Asami had been considering singing again but her cracked lips were sealed shut and her throat was dry.

The first rosy fingers of sunlight, already bright and harsh, were streaming into their shelter through the tattered parachutes and the cracks in the metal when Korra woke up. Carefully, she disentangled herself from Asami’s embrace then sat silent and still for a moment. Asami kept her eyes closed, letting Korra believe that she had managed to fall asleep. She felt Korra kiss her lightly on the temple before throwing aside the sand-swept canvas sealing the entrance to their shelter and crawling outside.

Curled up on the damp sand, alone, under the scraps of singed and bent metal, Asami prayed one last time for sleep.

Sleep eluding her, Asami traced the depression in the sand Korra had left. Strange, how that hollow in the sand was all the proof she had that Korra existed, that she wasn’t just a dream or a hallucination brought on by thirst and sleep deprivation. How fleeting and insignificant our presence in the universe is, Asami thought.

Asami rolled her eyes at herself. She didn’t remember all those sleepless caffeine-fuelled nights at college making her like this.

Sitting up, Asami ground her teeth as her head span and vision blurred. She wondered where Korra had gone. At first she thought Korra had stepped outside to pee, but apart from the few droplets of rainwater that had seeped through the roof of their shelter during the storm, neither of them had had much to drink for a while.

Her brain and vision finally solidifying again, Asami looked around for the navigator. She found it half-buried in the sand at the foot of the pillar of rock they had built their shelter against. Sighing, Asami cracked her stiff neck and sat back against the wall of rock, balancing the navigator on her knees and waiting for it to recalibrate. After the freezing night she’d endured, the faint warmth of the red sandy rock behind her was wonderful. In a few hours, when the suns were higher, it would be unbearable.

The screen was an incomprehensible purple blur. Asami shook the sand off the navigator and peered at the flickering screen. The sand that had at first been so welcome between her toes and under her nails had been very slowly driving her mad during the night. She could feel it in every scratch, in her mouth, and on her eyelashes. She could feel it in her mechanical arm, rubbing her scarred skin raw with every movement. And now it seemed to be interfering with the navigator.

“What idiot made this piece of shit?” Asami croaked under her breath, tossing it aside before realising that she was the idiot in question. Her voice sounded awful, dry and rasping. She coughed and tried to swallow the dysphoria. She dug her nails into the sand, rooting herself against the wash of disorientation and isolation, and bit down on her cracked lip.

Just as Asami was summoning her strength to crawl outside, Korra squeezed through the narrow gap between the rock and the sheets of metal. Her bandaged hands cupped together and her brow was furrowed in concentration.

Korra knelt down in the sand in front of Asami, dark water trickling between her fingers.

“I found the jerry can with all the water,” she said without looking up from her hands. “It got damaged in the storm and most of the water leaked out. This was all I could save.”

Korra lifted her hands up to Asami’s lips, almost reverentially, and nodded encouragingly.

“What about you?” Asami whispered, looking up at Korra.

“I’m fine,” Korra lied.

Asami knew there was no way she could convince Korra to drink the water. Hesitantly, she touched Korra’s hands with her fingertips, holding Korra steady as she leant forwards, cracked lips touching the rim of Korra’s cupped hands. Asami could taste the dried blood on Korra’s fingers as the wine-dark water ran down her dusty throat and down her chin. The water was gritting and warm but Asami drank deeply.

When Asami was done, Korra wiped her hands on her thighs and ran her fingers through her hair, smiling.

“Did you get any sleep?” Korra asked.

Asami made a grating noise in the back of her throat, wiping her mouth on the back of her sand-specked hand. Korra made a face.

“I’m fine,” Asami insisted. Asami was relieved that her voice didn’t sound quite as husky anymore.

“You haven’t slept in ages.”

“I was unconscious for a few minutes after the crash. I think that counts.”

Korra rolled her eyes but couldn’t fight her smile. “The dark circles under your eyes have dark circles.”

Asami rubbed her eyes. “I’m fine. It’s just the oil.”

Gently, Korra wiped away the last smudges of the oil from around Asami’s eyes.

“I honestly can’t tell if the oil’s gone or not,” Korra said, looking down her black-stained thumb and back at Asami’s face.

Asami tutted and took Korra’s hand, lifting a corner of the stained bandages, ignoring Korra’s protests.

“Your hands look awful. Look. Your knuckles have started bleeding again and there’s sand and dirt in the wounds.”

“I’m …”

“You’re fine. I know.” Asami held Korra’s hand tightly. “We both are, apparently.”

Korra sighed, nodding almost imperceptibly. Asami sat up, placing a hand on Korra’s cheek and a kiss on her forehead.

“We should get going,” Korra said. “Before it gets any hotter.”

Asami took a deep breath, grabbed the glitching navigator and crawled out of the shelter into the full glare of the suns. As she clambered to her feet, Asami was blinded and disoriented. She could feel Korra’s hand on her back, steadying her as her eyes adjusted to the sunlight.

The sky was clear, an almost impossibly deep blue that was almost purple. The air felt different, as though a tension she had never noticed had been released.

Almost every sign of the wrecked sailer had been razed by the storm. Only the occasional shard of blackened metal embedded in the sand like wartime grave markers proved that it had ever been there at all. Their shelter, even in the lea of the pillar of rock, had almost been erased by the storm too. Blankets of sand covered almost every inch of metal, several feet deep in places. It was a miracle the shelter hadn’t collapsed under the weight of the sand during the night.

“Well,” Korra said, her hand falling away from Asami’s back. “Which way are we headed?”

Asami looked down at the navigator and gave it a hard thump with her metal palm. For a second, she thought that the display had cleared, but in a flash the grid dissolved back into a swarm of pixels.

Asami groaned. “I … I don’t know. Something’s wrong with the navigator.”

“Shit.” Asami caught a flicker of a crooked smile. “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

“I think it’s the sand,” Asami said, ignoring her. “It gets everywhere. Or maybe some of the water that seeped through the roof last night damaged it.”

“Is … is the battery flat?” Korra suggested.

“No. No, the power source should be okay for a while longer.” Asami chewed her dry lip until she tasted blood and gnawed her thumbnail instead. “Maybe the storm fucked it up.”

“Can I have a look?” Korra asked.

“Sure,” Asami said resignedly as she passed it to Korra, “though I doubt you’d be able to fix it if I …”

Asami dropped the navigator and was almost knocked off her feet in shock as a sudden, deafening blur of motion burst out of the screen and they were both enveloped in a thunderous tornado of translucent blue wings.

As the swarm dissipated, becoming invisible against the sky, Asami staggered backwards and collapsed in the sand. Korra was still standing, mouth hanging open as something that looked like a shimmering cobalt-blue butterfly danced between her fingers.

Eyes wide, Asami picked herself up and waded through the sand to Korra’s side.

Even up close, Asami couldn’t tell if the tiny creature’s ethereal wings were worn and tattered or delicately feathered. From some angles it resembled a luminescent moth, from others a beakless hummingbird. Asami tried to count the number of fluttering glowing wings but she ended up with a different number each time. First count, she was certain there were only two. Then she could have sworn there were four. Then two again. Asami gave up counting after she became convinced there were six.

The creature’s faint glow shimmered on Korra’s dark skin and in her bright eyes as it wove lazily, or perhaps curiously, up and down and between her bandaged fingers. It was hard to follow the translucent creature’s erratic flight. Several times, Asami could have sworn it had actually flown through Korra’s hand.

“How did you do that?” Asami whispered.

“I didn’t do anything!” Korra said, transfixed by the gossamer-winged creature crawling and fluttering around her fingers.

Asami reached a tentative hand up. “Can I …?” she whispered, tears stinging the back of her eyes and a lump in her throat.

Moving slowly, Korra reached out her hand to Asami.

Holding her breath, Asami’s metal fingertips touched Korra’s palm. The vibrant blue wings glanced against her fingers and, for a moment, Asami felt a shiver run up her metal arm that made her gasp.

“Aliens,” Asami whispered, though in the back of her head a voice that might have been her own whispered something different. _Spirits_.

After flying once more around Korra’s hand, it settled on the tip of Asami’s tarnished finger. The glowing wings opened slowly, almost vanishing as the sun streamed through them, then closed, and it took flight up across the sand.

Asami blinked back tears and stood watching long after it had vanished against the sky.

Asami glanced at Korra, smiling when she saw her own awe in Korra’s eyes too.

Looking down to hide the tears filling her eyes, the flickering screen of the navigator caught Asami’s attention. She picked it up out of the sand and gasped.

“It’s working,” she said, smacking Korra gently but excitedly on the arm. “Those … those … whatever they were must have been … in the navigator or something. I felt it in my arm. It’s …” She couldn’t explain it but after that sensation the creature had sent through her arm, she had no difficulty believing that the entire swarm had been inside the navigator.

Korra was still looking out across the dunes. She tore herself away, looked down at her bandaged hand, and then at Asami.

She swallowed and clenched her fist.

“Which way?”

Asami fiddled with the navigator before looking up and pointing the way the butterfly-moth-bird-thing had flown. “That way,” she said, voice cracking and frowning at the strange coincidence.

“How far?” Korra asked, tearing a piece of the parachute canvas out of the sand.

Asami frowned at the screen. “Better part of a day.”

She scanned the heat-distorted horizon and sighed. Somehow, the journey ahead of them didn’t terrify her as much as she knew it should.

Eyes still on the horizon, Asami tied the navigator to her makeshift belt.

“You ready?” she asked, glancing back at Korra.

Korra shook the canvas clean and threw it to Asami. “Yup.”

“What’s this for?” Asami asked, sneering her nose up at the tattered strip of canvas that had hit her in the face.

“Keep the sand out of our mouths,” Korra said, pulling a second scrap of canvas out of the storm-swept dune that had grown around the outcrop of rock.

Uncertainly, Asami wrapped the canvas around her neck, pulling it up over her nose. Similarly clad, Korra touched Asami’s shoulder, the corners of her eyes creasing in a smile.

Asami smiled back, took a deep breath, and took one step forwards. Every fibre in her being was telling her to stop walking, to curl up in the shade of the rock and sleep. Grinding her teeth, sand crunching in her mouth, she took another. For a moment, she didn’t think she could keep going but Korra’s bandaged fingers ran down her sunburnt arm, lingered on her wrist for a second, then curled around two of Asami’s fingers.

The next thing Asami knew, she was looking back at a long wavering trail of scuffed footprints and a broken shard of rock like a red needle on the horizon.

As the suns climbed higher, a faint but incessant wind picked up and a mist of sand lapped at their ankles.

It was getting difficult to breathe. Asami felt like she was suffocating with the canvas over her mouth. Every breath she took seemed to intensify the heat of the desert tenfold. With stiff and burning hot metal fingers, she clawed at the scarf. Her fingers jerked clumsily, refusing to bend properly. Sand must have gotten into her arm. She eventually managed to tear the scarf away but lost her grip on it and the frayed scrap of canvas was snapped up by the wind. Not even bothering to watch the scarf fly off over the dunes, Asami took a deep lungful of fresh air, immediately regretting it as sand stung her throat.

Asami lost her grip on Korra’s fingers and knelt in the scorching sand. Chest racked by coughing, Asami watched as two tiny flecks of blood appeared on the sand only to be swallowed by the desert a moment later.

“Y’know …” she said, wiping the taste of blood from her mouth with the back of her hand as Korra crouched beside her. “… I think I’ve changed my mind.”

“About what?” Korra asked, her hand rubbing soft, soft circles over Asami’s back.

“About sand. I’m … fucking sick of it.” Korra started laughing behind her canvas scarf and Asami scowled at her. “I’m serious. It’s fucking everywhere. It’s …”

She started coughing again. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth and her breath caught in her throat. It was several minutes before she could talk again.

“It’s in my mouth and my throat …and my arse … my boots. It’s in the water and the air and it’s fucking up my arm.” She looked up at Korra, silhouetted against the blazing sky. “When we find Raava, let’s go somewhere without sand. Somewhere cold and far, far away from here.”

Korra nodded, her eyes smiling as she helped Asami to her feet.

“You okay?” she asked.

Asami nodded, brushing the wind-swept hair and sand out of her face.

“Can you help me get my arm off?” Asami said, looking down at the numb metal fingers then past Korra to the infinite distance. “It’s getting really heaving and there’s … I think the sand’s messing it up.”

“Of course,” Korra said, pulling the scarf down to her chin. “This bit right?”

Asami glanced at the clasp Korra was pointing at, nodded, and cast her gaze back to the horizon.

“There’s a moon,” Korra said, following Asami’s gaze out across the dunes to the rippling horizon as she pried the arm open. “Practically on the edge of the galaxy.”

“What’s it called?” Asami asked, wincing reflexively as Korra slipped the twitching, lifeless arm off. “Thanks, I was sweltering in that.”

“S’okay.” Korra said, slinging the arm over her shoulder and reaching out for Asami’s hand. Asami hooked her fingers into Korra’s gratefully. “Yue,” she said, “It’s called Yue.”

“What’s it like?” Asami asked quietly as they started trudging on through the sand, her voice hoarse from coughing.

Korra stuck out her cracked bottom lip. “Barren and cold,” she decided. “But … beautiful in her own way. Quiet. No settlers, no Kuvira, no sand. Lots of snow and glaciers and mountains and stuff.”

“Let’s go. Let’s go there,” Asami whispered. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine wet snowflakes melting on her face. “I’m … I’m going to run naked through the snow ‘til something falls off.”

“Sounds perfect,” Korra said, smiling, eyes fixed on the horizon.

Asami smiled too.

The sand fought Asami’s every step and the air was hot and thick. The almost serene feeling of the early morning, the feeling of release after the storm, had quickly given way to the heat and it felt like she was walking through treacle.

She found herself drifting. That was the only way she could describe it. Not falling asleep. Not disorientation or losing consciousness. Just drifting.

She was afraid she was going to faint when something fluttered on the edge of her vision. She thought at first that it was the butterfly alien things but when she tried to focus on it, it dissolved into nothing.

The navigator, tied to her belt, drummed against her thigh with every step. Asami didn’t mind. She liked the rhythm and it meant she didn’t forget to keep checking their progress. Three more bumps, she told herself, then I’ll check again.

One, two, three bumps against her thigh and Asami tugged on Korra’s hand. Korra seemed grateful for the rest, sinking down into the sand in the sliver of shade cast by a low outcrop of rock as Asami checked the navigator for the hundredth time. They had made good progress but they’d drifted off course a little. Not by much, but it was still enough to worry her. They couldn’t afford to waste any of their energy.

“Korra, more … more this way,” Asami said, trying to shield the screen from the glare of the suns. “We’ve been bearing to the left again. We haven’t got too …”

_Asami …_

Startled, Asami dropped the navigator and it bumped hard against her leg.

Where had that come from? That voice. She could only hear the wind and shifting sand now but she was sure she had heard something.

“Asami?” Korra said, climbing stiffly to her feet.

“I thought … It’s nothing …”

_Asami …_

There it was again. It might have been her own voice. She couldn’t tell.

“Let’s … let’s keep going.” Asami grasped Korra’s hand tightly and set off at a clumsy loping stride.

_I’m almost there …_

It was the desert, she told herself. The desert plays tricks on you.

_I’m almost there …_

She tried to think about what she knew was real.

The sand in her mouth. The suns burning her skin and her eyes. Korra’s sweaty hand in hers, the dirty strips of blood-stained cloth frayed and rough.

The voice behind her, sending shivers down her spine.

_Wait for me, Asami. I’m almost there …_

Asami closed her eyes. She would not look behind her. Walking blind, she stumbled in the sand, almost falling. She stared at the horizon instead, staring until her eyes hurt. She would not … she would … not …

_I love you, Asami. Please … please … look at me …_

Shivering, Asami slowly, slowly looked over her shoulder and had to stifle a sob.

_You let me die!_

“Korra,” Asami rasped, salt-rimmed eyes sealed tight.

“Yeah?”

“Can …” _Asami, darling … not again! Don’t leave me again!_ Her voice died in a choked whimper. “Can you talk to me? I … I need you to talk to me.”

Korra’s dirt streaked forehead creased. “Is something wrong?”

_You don’t deserve her …_

Asami shook her head, eyes still shut.

“What do you want me to talk about?” Korra asked.

_Let her go. Stay with me. She deserves better …_

“Anything,” Asami rasped. _You let me die!_ Asami tried to swallow but her throat was dry. “Tell … tell me about Raava.”

Korra was silent for a moment as she looked at Asami, concern in her mismatched blue eyes.

“I found her …” Korra said, voice dry and breaking. She coughed and started again. “I found her in a junkyard.” She shifted the metal arm over her shoulder a little. “I was just a kid. I’d run away from home. Again. No idea how old I was. Six, maybe? I remember realising that, after a while, I’d gotten further from home than I’d ever gotten before. Usually I’d go home again after a few hours. Usually because I’d gotten cold or eaten all the chocolate biscuits I’d stolen. But that day I kept going. I just kept walking. Part of me must have known that I’d go home eventually. But I kept going.”

As Korra spoke, Asami’s breathing calmed and she felt her grip on reality tightening. She forgot the old man in the tattered space suit following her. She forgot the frozen blood filling the air like smoke, the shards of his visor embedded in his shrunken face gleaming in the sun, the cut lifeline trailing behind him in the sand. His voice was slower to fade, but eventually that too evaporated.

“I must have walked well into the night,” Korra said, smiling as Asami’s panicked grip on her hand became softer, “because I remember seeing the hyperspace portal shining through the snow-heavy clouds and shimmering on the ice. I’d only caught faint glimpses of it before. The lights of the compound made it almost impossible to see and this far from home it was …”

She struggled to find the words and glanced at Asami who was as transfixed by Korra as the young runaway had been by the gate.

“The gate had been decommissioned for years,” Korra said, “but the sunlight reflecting off it made it shine like a … I thought an angel had lost its halo.”

Asami couldn’t help herself. She tried to fight it but she couldn’t. She snorted and made an amused if slightly patronising face.

“Don’t laugh,” Korra protested, smiling lopsidedly. “I was six. I still believed in angels.”

Korra pretended to sulk for a few minutes before Asami ran her thumb over the back of Korra’s hand and whispered, “Please don’t stop.”

“I was so transfixed, staring up at the gate that I walked headfirst into a wire fence and fell flat on my arse in the snow. It was an old rusty fence, full of holes and despite the warning signs, I don’t think it had been electrified since before I was born so I managed to squeeze through it. It was a junkyard of wrecked ships and decommissioned mining crap but I thought I’d found some kind of secret government research base. I amused myself for about ten minutes by skulking between the mountains of trash with my flashlight looking for aliens and suspicious men in black suits. When I got bored of that I just climbed stuff and threw dirty snowballs at rusty cranes. I was just beginning to think about going home when these two enormous dogs came running at me out of nowhere. I shit you not, they had glowing red eyes and breathed fire!”

Asami burst into laughter, hoarse and painful but genuine. “Are you sure it wasn’t just their breath condensing in the cold?”

“Yeah, well, obviously in retrospect, but I was like six and it scared me shitless. (I always took Naga with me whenever I ‘ran away’ after that.) I managed to climb part way up some scaffolding that had been put up around this ship. Nearly all the other ships in that junkyard were shells, skeletons stripped of everything worth taking and rusting away to nothing. But even in the dark I could tell that they hadn’t started working on this one yet, though it looked like it had been rusting there for decades. The dogs lost interest after a while and slunk off but I was too scared to come down. I must have fallen asleep up there because I remember suddenly waking up, my entire body freezing and a bright light dazzling me. I crawled along the scaffolding a little and looked down and …”

Korra was getting breathless.

“You can give me the abridged version if you’re getting tired,” Asami said.

Korra smiled slightly.

“There was a bunch of guys standing around and … it had started snowing pretty heavily but … they were watching as someone hosed down a trash compactor. The runoff was turning the trodden down snow into a red slush, an almost lurid red under the floodlights. They’d thrown someone into the compactor.”

Asami sucked her teeth in shock. “Ouch.”

“Mmm.” Korra rubbed sweat out of her eye with the back of her hand, almost dropping Asami’s mechanical arm. “They hung around afterwards, chatting and laughing like it was a country club. A couple of them drifted away from the others and stood right below me.

“I only caught a few snatches of what they were saying but it seemed like they thought the ship above me was probably in working order and that it’d be a shame to just strip it down to its bones but no one could work out how to get inside. The junkyard must have been run by the Triads or something. I never found out for certain. They were saying that all the airlocks on this ship had been sealed shut, they couldn’t get in through the hull, and the ship’s AI wasn’t responding. I wriggled along the platform, trying to get a better idea of what they were saying, suddenly back in my superspy conspiracy game. I accidentally kicked something with my foot, a toolbox or something, and the next thing I knew, the floodlights were pointing right at, people were shouting, the dogs were barking, and my ears were ringing from gunshots ricocheting off the scaffolding.

“I didn’t know what to do, so I climbed. Looking back on it, I have no idea how I didn’t lose my footing on that scaffolding, there was so much ice and sleet and I was frozen to the marrow. I climbed and I climbed until I was right under the nose of the ship. They’d repositioned the floodlights up at me so I could see the airlock a few inches above me. The metal had been scorched and scraped and battered but the seal was unbroken. I reached up a hand … I remember this weird wave of calm washing over me and I could almost feel electricity dancing in my fingertips and my sodden hair … and before my fingers even touched the cold metal, it opened.

“I don’t know why, but I wasn’t surprised at all, it just seemed so right. Of course the ship would open for me, I thought. She had chosen me. I climbed up into the darkness and I carried on climbing until I emerged in a small, dark room. I could feel metal under my feet and the air smelt stale and cold. I curled up in a ball and whispered: ‘I don’t want to die.’ This … this hum filled the room and my chest and I heard a voice. Raava’s voice. I don’t remember what she said exactly, I was so scared, but it was something like …” Korra’s voice became flat and calm, “… _’Please state your name.’_ I told her my name and she said that my voice print had now been saved or something. I asked if she had a name and she said: _‘Raava’_.

“A few lights had started flickering around me and I could kind of make out where I was. There were huge windows on almost every side but they were covered with heavy metal shutters and there was a big chair opposite a huge and complicated mess of controls. Then Raava asked me to state speed and course. I could almost hear the shouts and gunshots and dogs outside. I climbed up into the chair, shivering, and just said, ‘Get me out of here’.

“Everything shook. I could hear ice breaking and metal groaning and something roaring deep, deep down inside Raava. My stomach turned as we took off and I screwed my eyes up as tightly as I could. The next thing I knew the shutters were opening, bits of ice and snow flying everywhere, and we were sitting on a vast plateau of ice, mountains all around us and not a person (or angry dog) in sight.

“I told Raava that I really needed to get home, promising that I’d be back. I remember I didn’t know how to get out though. The airlock in the nose I’d come through was hundreds of feet above the ice and I didn’t have any scaffolding to shimmy down. She turned on these little blue lights to show me how to get down through the hold. I ran as fast as I could, not because I was afraid … I’m not sure why, but I remember not being afraid of her at all. Just before I stepped out onto the ice, she said she’d be waiting for me. When Raava said that, I felt so … I don’t know. So warm, I guess.

“It took me the rest of the night to get home and I would have been able to sneak back into bed if Naga hadn’t been waiting for me. She woke the entire compound with her barking and I was grounded for like a year.”

Asami laughed. It felt good to be laughing again. “Having your own spaceship must have made running away from home a lot easier.”

Korra shrugged. “It didn’t hurt.”

“My parents ran one of the largest engineering corporations in the Republic and even I didn’t have my own ship when I was six.”

Korra smiled her beautiful crooked smile, scratching the back of her head and almost dropping Asami’s metal arm again.

“For a while …” she said, perhaps even blushing a little under the sand, grime, and blood. “For a while I was too scared to go back to Raava. And besides, there was a whole world that I wasn’t allowed to explore that I was absolutely going to explore and I was going to do it the old fashioned way.”

“Stealing you dad’s snowmobile?”

“Exactly. It wasn’t until my teens that I really …”

An incessant electronic tone cut Korra off.

“What’s that mean?” Korra asked as Asami stopped walking and let go of her hand.

Asami looked at the screen, a wave of relief and a wave of despair crashing into each other.

“We’re here,” she said, looking around at the empty, barren landscape as a lump rose in her dry throat. “This is where Raava was shot down.”

Asami’s metal arm dropped with a muffled _thud_ in the sand.

“It can’t be,” Korra gasped hoarsely.

She looked like she was about to collapse. Asami went to steady her. It was a few seconds before she realised that the scarred arm she had raised to put around Korra’s shoulders stopped well above the elbow.

“It can’t be,” Korra said again. “She’s not here.”

Asami could barely speak.

Korra fell to her knees in the sand, bandaged hands limp by her sides. Asami knelt beside her, wishing she could cry as she enveloped her in an incomplete embrace. She wished she could lie to Korra. She wished she could tell her that she had made a mistake, that Raava had actually crashed just over the next ridge and that she was there waiting for her. She wished more than anything that she could tell her everything would be okay, but she couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” she croaked, feeling hollow and broken. “I’m so sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Rendezvous with Raava  
> (Because I love puns, Arthur C Clarke, and Arthur C Clarke puns!)


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long since the last update but I've done my dissertation and all my other essays now and I have no marketable skills or work experience so I have all the free time in the world for writing now!

Korra gasped, voice dry and hoarse. “Raava!”

“Korra,” Asami shouted, voice breaking, “I can’t … I can’t keep up.”

Korra stopped running and turned, a cloud of dust rising around her legs like mist thinning slowly in the dying sunlight. They had been walking in circles searching for the crash site for hours, crawling when the suns were at the highest and, now that night was falling, finally, Korra had broken into a stumbling run across the dunes. She was panting heavily, her dirty hair was plastered to her face and her skin glistened and dripped with sweat.

They had no idea where they were. The navigator had run out of power hours ago and was now lying half-buried under wind-swept sand miles behind them. Or perhaps only a matter of yards behind them. Without the navigator, working out where they were in the ever-shifting, near-featureless desert was next to impossible.

“I saw her!” Korra croaked through cracked lips. She glanced back over her shoulder, looking like a startled forest creature torn between fight and flight. “I saw her, Asami! She’s …. she’s just over the next dune, she’s …”

“Korra …” Asami felt her legs trembling and head spinning.

“I saw the sun reflecting off her hull,” Korra said wading on through the sand again. “I’m sure of it this time! She’s there! We’ve found her!”

Asami didn’t move. Her eyes closed slowly, heavily, and she felt herself tipping forwards.

“Korra …” she whispered, seconds before she collapsed into the sand.

Just before everything faded to black, Asami saw Korra turn back and drop the mechanical arm she’d been dragging through the sand. As Korra ran to her, kicking up waves of sand in her wake, Asami felt as though she were watching everything through the wrong end of a telescope from hundreds of miles away.

She didn’t remember losing consciousness, but the next thing she was aware of was Korra’s face slowly coming into focus, twisted in pain and something else, something Asami couldn’t place. Concern? Guilt? Korra’s face, smeared by sweat, dirt, blood, and sand, was haloed by stars just beginning to appear in the gold-fingered evening sky.

“I’m sorry,” Korra whispered, closing her sore, mismatched-blue eyes and touching her forehead gently against Asami’s as she cradled her.

Asami opened her mouth but no words came out. She lifted her hand and threaded her fingers through Korra’s hair. Korra’s cracked lips left dry kisses across her eyelids and cheeks and down the bridge of her nose.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

Asami sat up, with Korra’s help, and rested her head against Korra’s shoulder, exhausted. She felt arms tightening around her and bandaged fingers running through her greasy, tangled hair. The heat from Korra’s body almost suffocating her, Asami sunk deep into the embrace.

Maybe this had all been a mistake, Asami thought. They were never going to get off this hell of a planet alive. But at least they’d die together. Together and free. That gave her some strange comfort.

“Is she there?” Asami asked eventually, whispering hoarsely into Korra’s chest.

“Mirage,” Korra said flatly. “She’s not there. Just like last time. And the time before that.”

Korra had seen Raava – or at least thought she had – so many times that day that Asami had lost track. Some people see pools of shimmering water in the desert, others see shadowy oases of palm trees or vast cities of glass and chrome rising out of the sand, and some …. some see their dead fathers shuffling through the sand as blood freezes in the air around him. But not Korra. Korra saw sun gleaming on metal, clouds of sand thrown up by thrusters, familiar hulls half-buried in sand. It broke Asami’s heart every time she saw Korra’s body stiffen and eyes go wide before sprinting as best she could up a dune shouting her ship’s name only to fall to her knees in the sand when the shimmering mirage faded.

“The desert plays tricks,” Asami murmured gravelly, looking up at Korra.

Korra opened her eyes, tiny pinpoints of moisture clinging to her sand-laden eyelashes.

“What are you going to do?” Korra croaked, clearly trying to sound light-hearted and soothing but choking on sand and tears instead. “When we find her and don’t have to worry about dying of thirst. When we’re finally home safe. What’ll you do first?”

Asami sighed. Breathing the smell of Korra’s skin, heady with sweat and sun, she clutched the back of Korra’s vest in her hand and laughed.

“I’m going to have a bath,” she whispered.

Korra shook her head. “Only got a shower,” she rasped quietly.

Asami let go of Korra’s vest and leant back. “You don’t have a bath?” she asked as Korra’s hands fell slowly to the sand, following the soft curves of her body as they went. “What kind of heathen are you?”

Korra shook her head again. “Raava’s a trawler, not a pleasure cruiser,” she said with a slight shadow of a smile.

Asami played her indignation as playfully exaggerated exasperation but she had been looking forward to that bath for two years. Almost painfully hot, a layer of bubbles so thick you could walk on it, flower petals floating in the bright pink water, scented candles sputtering around a massive restored nineteenth-century clawfoot bathtub, and the smell of lavender and rose and citrus clinging to her hair and filling the house for days. That was the bath, the perfect bath, that Asami had fantasied about all the time she’d been in prison. For the first few months, she had pictured someone – at times, multiple someones – in that bath with her. But after two years of communal showers, there was no way Asami was planning on sharing her sacred first bath.

“At this point, I think I’d settle for a bubble bath in the kitchen sink,” Asami said, picking herself up out of the sand. She stood for a second, shielding her eyes against the setting suns. “Nope,” she whispered as her legs folded under her and she collapsed back down into the sand.

Korra smiled and stretched out on the sand. Asami did the same and they lay on the baking desert sand side by side, fingers entwined, watching the first faint stars turning slowly, imperceptibly.

“We’re gonna have to find her soon,” Korra said after a while. “Or else …” Her voice trailed off but that in itself spoke volumes.

“Can we just watch the stars?” Asami whispered.

“Yeah,” Korra said, barely above a breath. She gave Asami’s hand a squeeze and let the silence rest for a while.

The stars, faint in the burnished sky, soon vanished again as Si Wong’s second sun, that distant dying star, having flirted with the horizon for a few minutes, began to climb again. The dying sun’s weak light seemed brighter than usual but Asami could still look directly at it for minutes at a time before having to look away.

“Doesn’t look like there’ll be much stargazing tonight,” Asami whispered as the light grew and the stars faded. She ran her dry tongue over her dry lips. “I wish we’d saved that cigarette.”

They lay there, in the dying star’s weak twilight glow that was just strong enough to swallow the stars, and they didn’t say anything until Korra pointed up at the sky and whispered, “Make a wish” as a bright-white light streaked across the sky.

Asami closed her eyes and thought about a long, hot bubble bath.

Beside her, Korra sat up on her elbows and muttered under her breath, “The fuck?”

Asami opened an eye. “Hmm?”

“That’s not a shooting star …”

“How do you know?” Asami asked, opening the other eye.

“It just changed direction.”

Asami sat up, squinting through the wooziness.

Korra was right. Whatever it was had changed course, leaving a zigzagging contrail across the sky. It was getting steadily bigger and brighter as though …

“It’s heading for us,” Asami said, almost questioningly.

She could feel Korra’s body tensing next to her.

“I dunno,” she said, jaw clenching.

Korra and Asami were picking themselves up out of the clinging sand when the falling star that was not a star burst in a silent flash and a spray of smaller, brighter stars fell away. One by one, they faded into nothingness until only the original was left, continuing its spiralling descent towards them.

A trail of thick black smoke followed it as it fell, staining the golden sky. Like the delayed crash of thunder that follows the lightning, a muted snare drum smash echoed over the desert.

“It’s breaking up,” Asami said, watching as another silent explosion spewed debris into the sky.

“Is it a ship making re-entry?” Korra asked. Asami couldn’t tell if it was hope or fear edging Korra’s voice.

The delayed crash of the second explosion echoed over the desert.

“Not at this angle,” Asami said, though she was further from certain than she would have admitted. “Maybe it’s a heli-jet or something. It seems fairly agile despite … you know … falling from the sky in a ball of fire.”

“Whatever it is,” Korra said, “I don’t think it’s going to be a pretty landing.”

The shrieking started after that. It was like the sound of a dying animal. A furious dying animal that refused to go down quietly and would gladly take the whole world with it if it could.

At a few hundred feet above the sand, the shrieking reaching its deafening crescendo, Asami could just about make out the shape of the falling craft. Judging by its squat, almost insect-like silhouette and the awful sound it was making, she had been right about it being a heli-jet. She had no idea what model it was though. She had even less idea what it was doing all the way out here on this spirits-forsaken planet.

It dipped lower and lower as it tore through the sky towards them and, for a second, it looked like it would just give up its struggle and drop like a stone but it straightened up and continued its relatively controlled descent. Asami couldn’t help but admire the pilot’s evident skill.

A choked thunderclap, a strained whistle like a firework, and a bright yellow flash exploded above the falling heli-jet. Asami blinked the afterglow out of her eyes. The glowing trails of smoke hanging in the air looked like a giant dandelion gone to seed in the sky.

“The fuck was that?”

“Distress flare,” Asami muttered. “Looks like the old ones the Earth Empire resistance used during the Ozai occupation. If it is, then either a red or green flare should go up in answer. Green will mean help’s on the way, red’ll mean there’s problems back at base and whoever’s in the heli-jet is on their own.”

“How can you tell what kind of flare it is?”

“My granddad had a collection of war memorabilia when I was a kid. I got my hands on a resistance flare and … Remember how I said I burnt down my dad’s shed when I was twelve?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Korra chuckled as she scanned the horizon expectantly. Asami smiled to herself. Making Korra laugh filled her with a warmth that was … hard to describe.

Several miles away over the sand, as if in answer, a similar red dandelion erupted in a distant, silent flash of light.

“There,” Korra said quietly, pointing at the red flower of smoke blooming just above the horizon. “That’s their base or …”

Korra was drowned out by the heli-jet’s anguished screaming as it sailed over their heads. Asami caught a glimpse of it through the smoke filling the air. Definitely a heli-jet, though she still didn’t recognise it. It wasn’t anything she’d ever flown before, and she’d flown nearly everything.

The heli-jet only managed to stay in the air for a few minutes after it had passed them. The haze of intense heat and a slowly rising column of smoke marked where it had plunged, shrieking, into the sand.

“That’s … that’s what? Almost a mile away? Less?” Korra said, gripping Asami’s arm.

She knew what Korra was thinking. “Korra …” she said, “I’m not going to be able to fix it. I don’t have the energy or …”

Korra’s wide eyes shone in the dying sun’s twilight. They’d been chasing mirages all day, so to have something _tangible_ to aim for was exhilarating.

“I know. I know, but they might have supplies or … or a bathtub.” Korra shrugged, voice cracking as she whispered, “What have we got to lose?”

Asami let out a long, slow breath.

“I don’t think I can make it,” she admitted, as much to herself as to Korra.

“It’s not far …” Korra said.

Asami shook her head.

Korra sighed deeply. “Come on then, mister Frodo,” she said, a lopsided grin flickering over her dirt-streaked face as she picked Asami’s arm up, shaking the sand out of it.

Asami looked at her blankly. “What?”

“Hold this,” Korra said as she thrust the metal arm into Asami’s hand.

Asami looked at the cold metal fingers blankly.

A strong, tattooed arm slipped around her waist and before Asami knew what was happening, her feet had left the sand. Asami squealed like a little child, internally chastising herself as the noise escaped. Korra draped Asami over her shoulder and began trudging wobbly over the sand.

“I’m going to kill you!” Asami hissed, fighting a weary smile as the blood rushed into her head.

Korra shushed her and said, “Just enjoy the view.” Asami could tell she was smiling as she said that and she felt herself smiling too.

The view in question was Korra’s bottom, a view which Asami had to put up with for what felt like an eternity as Korra staggered over the sand.

It wasn’t long before the smell of smoke and burning metal was stinging Asami’s nose. By the time Korra put her down, not taking her hands off her until she had steadied herself, Asami could feel the heat of the wrecked heli-jet. She shielded her face and, Korra by her side, she skidded down the edge of the crater that had been gouged into the sand.

The sand had choked most of the fire but the heat was still enough to take Asami’s breath away as she waited for Korra to pry the hatch to the heli-jet’s cockpit open. It was an ancient model she half recognised. Before the terraforming towers had been abandoned, these little waspish heli-jets had been used by maintenance workers. Gutted by scavengers and battered by wind and sand, the T-towers now stood, or lay, as dormant, empty monuments to mankind’s hubris, each one a skeletal and metallic Ozymandias half buried in the shifting sands. Most of the heli-jets had met the same fate. But not this one. Not until now.

“Earth Empire?” Korra asked.

Asami shook her head. “Locals. Scavengers, probably. It’s got bits and pieces from all kinds of ships. See those thrusters at the front are from an old Empire drone. What’s left of the others look a lot like something C-Corp would use in one of their cruise ships’ landing gear. There’s weaponry here from both sides of the war, and the claws look like they’ve been made from old mining equipment. And it’s all being held together by rust and bits of scrap. So, probably scavengers.”

Korra’s eyes lit up. It wasn’t very hard for Asami to guess what she was thinking because she was thinking exactly the same thing. _Scavengers. Scavengers found Raava before we did._

The door came away fairly easily. Like most of the heli-jet, it had been cannibalised from something long since rusted away to nothing or swallowed by the desert and was being held in place by little more than duct tape and sheer force of will.

Korra staggered inside, offering Asami a hand up. The fire hadn’t reached the cockpit but Asami could still feel the heat from the fire and smoke was seeping in through a filtration system that, Asami was convinced, had probably been stolen from something else. The cockpit was full of bits and pieces of machinery and scrap metal, some in string sacks on the walls, most scattered across the floor.

Stretched across the floor near the door, a dark pool spreading around her head like a halo, was a girl. Asami touched a finger to her throat. No pulse.

Her clothes were dirty and ragged, and there were canvas pouches hidden among the folds. Asami checked a few, looking for food or water, but most of them held bits of metal, most of it worthless. A bent spring and a square of metal polished to a wonderful gleam by the shifting sands in one, a handful of depleted batteries in another, and in another, a broken wristwatch with a cracked face and missing all but the motionless minute hand. Asami stopped looking after that.

An ancient respirator hung from a leather cord at the girl’s waist and dust-smeared goggles were almost lost in her thick, dirty black hair. Her sun-darkened face, boyish and thin, was smudged black with engine oil, dirt, and blood from a deep wound to the temple. A similar smudge on the door’s long-dead keypad shone in the semi-darkness.

Asami swallowed. With gentle fingers, she closed the dead girl’s blank eyes, hoping that would make her feel less guilty for taking the goggles and the respirator.

As Asami had been searching the scavenger girl, Korra had picked her way through the mess, edging deeper into the cockpit.

Getting to her feet and throwing the respirator, goggles, and her metal arm out into the sand, Asami heard Korra gasp.

“Korra?”

“Asami! Come quick!”

Asami squeezed around a large, fire-marked and dented water pump that looked suspiciously like the ones that had been in their prison shuttle, brushed aside a curtain of beads, and found herself standing next to Korra at the wrecked craft’s controls. Despite the twilight trickling through the tinted, sand-encrusted windows, Korra was cast in a strange blue light, a strange blue light that seemed to accentuate the fractionally mismatched shades of blue in her eyes. Asami’s gaze only rested on Korra’s eyes for a second before they were drawn to the craft’s controls. It took her a while to process what she was seeing as her blood froze and the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end.

The flickering instrument panels were alive with a swarm of translucent, glowing blue butterflies flitting erratically in and out of the metal and plastic.

“Shit,” Asami murmured.

This swarm was smaller than the one which had burst from their navigator, but the air was soon thick with blue, ethereal wings. One or two wandered curiously, flirtatiously, over Asami’s skin, every fleeting moment of contact sending rushes of static through her body, making her gasp.

Korra, though, was wreathed in them. They flitted through her hair, passed through her chest like ghosts, lavished her skin in tiny electric kisses. They haloed her and weaved in and out and through her bandaged fingers. Korra’s lip trembled, pupil’s dilated, and her breath came in short, shallow gasps.

Asami reached out a hand to Korra and, the moment her fingers brushed Korra’s arm, the swarm vanished. Stillness hung. Asami opened her mouth to say something when, in a sudden burst that was both silent and deafening, a swirling torrent of glowing butterfly wings tore through them and poured out of the heli-jet’s cockpit.

Racing to the door, tripping on the pieces of metal and slipping in a slowly spreading pool of blood, Asami and Korra were just in time to see a faint blur of rushing blue wings flying over the desert towards the red smoke that still hung in the air.

“They’re heading towards the red flare,” Korra said.

Asami didn’t say anything, just nodded.

As Korra rummaged around the smoke-filled cockpit, Asami stumbled out onto the sand, spluttering, and ran a few paces though the swarm had long since vanished in the distance. Her eyes stung from the smoke and the heat and it was a few minutes before her vision cleared. When it did, her mouth fell open and, despite the heat of the wrecked heli-jet and the desert, she could almost feel her blood freezing.

“Korra …”

Korra looked up, edging away from the dead pilot near the door.

“Shit,” she muttered as, all around them for miles upon miles, the desert lit up with flares.

“They were all yellow, all distress flares,” Korra said as the artificial daylight faded back into the eerie twilight.

“They’re fleeing something,” Asami said.

“The butterflies,” Korra said.

They watched and waited for several minutes. The butterflies didn’t reappear and no more flares lit up the sky, yellow, red, or green.

The fires that had consumed nearly half of the heli-jet’s thrusters quickly died down. As the smoke in the cockpit began to clear, Korra had another look around. Asami sat in the sand, eyes on the distant horizon.

She shook the sand out of her metal arm and rubbed some of the joints with a clump of greasy metal wool she had found in another of the dead scavenger’s pouches. When she was done, she put the arm back on and was relieved to find that, though there was still some feedback and the arm seemed heavier than she was used to, it didn’t appear to be quite as clumsy as it had been the day before.

Asami put the goggles on but couldn’t see anything through the layers of dust so she pushed them up onto her head. At least they would keep the hair out of her eyes, if not the sand.

“What do we do?” Asami asked, looking out across the sand to where a smudge of red in the sky still marked where the second flare had gone off. 

“We follow the butterflies,” she said from inside the wrecked heli-jet. Asami imagined Korra’s brow furrowing and the muscles in her jaw flexing. “To the red flare. That’s the scavenger camp. That’s … maybe we’ll find a ship that can get us off-world.”

Asami nodded to herself. They didn’t really have any other choice.

She noticed that Korra didn’t mention Raava, but she didn’t say anything. She knew by now that Korra was not great at vocalising her fears and feelings. Asami had known that for a long time. Ever since Korra had returned from the Box, Asami had seen there was something in Korra’s eyes, something on the tip of her tongue she had wanted to tell her but had kept biting back. Asami thought she knew what it was Korra had been dying to say since that night, she had her suspicions and she was dying for Korra to just say it, to say she …

Asami couldn’t criticise, though. She knew she was just as bad. She’d been dying to say the same thing since … shit, she couldn’t even tell for certain now.

She couldn’t remember ever not loving Korra.

A sudden clattering from inside the heli-jet made Asami jump out of her reverie and, before she could stagger to her feet, Korra had leapt down from the heli-jet, landing almost knee-deep in the sand beside her. Korra was smiling so broadly Asami thought she would hurt herself, but when she realised what Korra was clutching in her bandaged hands, she was smiling just as much.

Korra shoved the canister into Asami’s hands and, shaking, too ecstatic to even speak, Asami pried off the plastic lid, lifted the dented canister to her dry, cracked lips. Cool, clean water trickled down her throat, sending shivers down her spine and she felt a laugh bubbling up from her chest. She couldn’t fight it and she almost choked on the water she was gulping down. She was certain it was about to shoot out of her nose and, realising she hadn’t stopped for a breath yet, she passed the canister to Korra, laughing and wiping her mouth on the back of her metal hand.

Korra guzzled the water down hungrily in loud, lurching gulps. Gleaming rivulets of water trickled down Korra’s chin and her throat, lightning their way across her dark, burnt skin. Before the water’s cold, lithe fingers had reached the hollow between Korra’s collarbones, they had been intercepted by Asami’s lips.

She could taste the salt of Korra’s skin and sweat and she could feel Korra’s throat pulsing with blood and mouthfuls of water. A hand on Korra’s chest and her mouth to Korra’s throat, Asami could feel Korra hum approvingly and she couldn’t help but reply in kind.

“It’s sweet,” Korra spluttered, smiling when all but the last few drops were gone from the canister and her throat.

“Is it?” Asami laughed, breathlessly. She had gulped it down so quickly she hadn’t noticed.

Hiccupping, they laughed and kissed messily. Delighting in the sweetness still clinging to Korra’s lips, Asami wondered whether water had always tasted like that. It certainly hadn’t in the prison. In the prison, the recycled water had tasted stale, laced with rust, ammonia, and chlorine. Even the bottled water that had Kai somehow managed to get into the prison hadn’t tasted like the droplets still clinging to Korra’s lips. Asami wondered whether the scavengers mixed their water with something to replace the ions they lost through their sweat.

Feeling lightheaded and still hiccupping, they sat down heavily in the sand. Asami couldn’t stop smiling as they gathered their strength. She could almost _feel_ the hope coursing through her veins.

“You …” Korra said, swallowing her words before she’d even begun. Asami turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow. “You don’t want to go back, do you? Back to the Republic and the war.”

“No,” Asami whispered, leaning her head on Korra’s tattooed shoulder. I want to stay with you, she thought.

“And I don’t want to go back to being a Cowboy,” Korra said, draping her arm around Asami and letting her get comfortable. Asami smiled to herself. When Korra had said ‘Cowboy’, a faint flicker of a grin had spread over her face. “I’m pretty sure most of my accounts were frozen when I was arrested and you’re …”

“My fortune was lost long before my battalion was captured,” Asami said.

Korra ran bandaged fingers through Asami’s hair. “So, we’re pretty much broke. We’re gonna need money eventually, and we’re both escaped felons …”

“You’re an escaped felon. _I’m_ an escaped prisoner of war.”

Korra smiled, rolling her eyes. “Why don’t we go into scavenging?”

“I thought you were sick of sand.”

Korra laughed through her nose and Asami thought she was going to get a pinch, but she didn’t. “Oh, I am. Not here, though these scavengers are what gave me the idea. The entire system is full of wreckage from the war. Skeletons of ships just hanging there in space. Weapons and fuel and computers and supplies and parts just sitting there. I’ve heard that there’s still junk from the Hundred Years War in some sectors. You’re an engineering genius and the best pilot I’ve ever met. I’ve got an unhealthy attitude towards my own mortality and a ton of underworld connections. It wouldn’t be strictly legal but we wouldn’t have to hurt anyone. We might actually be able to do some good. There must be tons of medical equipment and supplies that we could get to people who need them.” Korra chewed her lip anxiously. “And … besides, selling parts of the Empire’s battleships to smugglers and resistance fighters would be one in the eye for Kuvira. Seems like the perfect job for us.”

Asami stuck her bottom lip out thoughtfully, tipping her head to the side. “Hmmm, yeah” she said, nodding. “I like it. Let’s do it,” she added quietly.

“Awesome,” Korra whispered, bandaged fingers tracing the seashell intricacies of Asami’s ear.

Their breath had begun condensing in the air by the time they set off across the sand towards the smudge of red smoke still hanging in the still, windless sky. Korra had found another two canisters of water hidden in the heli-jet’s cabin and, once they had rested for an hour or two, Korra and Asami set off across the sand.

By the time the brighter sun rose again, the night-long twilight becoming blinding, burning daylight, Asami had lost sight of the faint whispers of smoke from the wreckage of the heli-jet behind them.

As the desert heated up again, a wind picked up. It was just a breath of wind, not enough to cool them, but strong enough that sand seemed to tear through the air and claw at the exposed skin of their arms and throats.

Korra and Asami took turns wearing the ancient respirator and goggles. They walked in single file, whoever was wearing the goggles and respirator walking in front to shield the other from most of the sand.

They were careful with the water, but before the brighter sun had reached its zenith, the canisters were dry and they were trying futilely to catch any last droplets in their mouths. Asami’s tongue soon felt like sandpaper on her dry lips again, but she kept going.

As the water ran out, so too did Asami’s hope. It evaporated, trickled away, leaving just an aching dryness in her throat. As the elation she’d felt with that first gulp of sweet water faded, the future seemed to fade too. They wouldn’t find Raava and wander the galaxy as scavengers. Why had they bothered making plans like that? Find one canteen of water and suddenly it’s time to plan for an entire life together.

Pointless. Stupid. Why had she let herself believe even for a second that they would find Raava. Why had she let herself hope for a life with Korra? Why …?

Asami looked up from the sand swirling around her ankles, filling her boots. The smudge of smoke from the red flare was gradually appearing to be higher and higher in the sky as they got closer and closer to what they both hoped was the scavengers’ camp. That smudge in the sky, that wisp of smoke, while not as powerful as the water had been, kept her going. The well of hope deep in her chest was not empty, not yet. She set her jaw and held on to that feeling fiercely.

Asami prayed that, if they made it there, they wouldn’t have to fight. She didn’t think she’d care if they didn’t find Raava there. She didn’t believe she’d even care if they didn’t find water or food. She just didn’t want to fight. She was tired. So, so tired. Not just physically. Her weariness permeated deeply, down to her soul.

She thought about the life she wanted, the life she and Korra would have once they got off this hell hole. (Because they would, she told herself. They absolutely would!) She envisioned a lifetime of oversleeping, long baths, curling up on the sofa with Korra and a crappy book, listening to old music during the day and Korra’s snoring at night, and staring at the stars for days at a time. She saw a lifetime of ennui and lethargy ahead of her and nothing could have made her happier.

That was her idea of heaven as she fought her way through a blizzard of sand, breathing hot dusty air through a dirty respirator and sweat seeping through every pore.

Hours passed in breathless, panting silence until Korra muttered something, voice muffled by the respirator.

“Huh?” Asami gasped between strained, weary lungfulls of hot, sandy air.

Korra half-turned and said something.

Asami frowned. “I can’t understand you with that thing on.”

Behind the thick goggles, Korra rolled her eyes and she tore off the ancient respirator.

“My implants are still dead,” she groaned. “I … Part of me kinda believed that I’d have heard Raava by now.”

Asami didn’t point out the obvious alternate reason for Raava’s silence.

“We’re almost there,” Asami said, touching Korra’s arm comfortingly. “You’ll be able to talk to her face to … central processing unit before you know it.” Assuming, of course, that the scavengers _had_ found Raava, and assuming that she wasn’t a heap of scrap metal. That was a lot of assumptions, Asami thought as they trudged on through the scorching sand.

Asami had worried that if the wind got any stronger, the smoke from the flare would fade to nothing, leaving them stranded, wandering aimlessly. Luckily, the wind soon died down to nothing. Although that made the heat all the more unbearable, hours after it had been fired, the red smoke still hung in the air so Asami was grateful.

As the wind had died down, they had no need for the respirator and, un-muffled, Korra had begun singing snippets of songs from the ancient tape cassettes Aang had collected. She made her way through several glam rock, British Invasion, and new wave songs, well and truly butchering them all, before she eventually settled on the chorus and a half-remembered verse of a song she apparently found far too catchy.

“Do you have to sing that?” Asami said teasingly after Korra had mumbled her way through what little she remembered of the song for perhaps the hundredth time.

“What’s wrong with it? I love this band! I’ll fucking fight you.”

Asami laughed and shoved Korra lightly. “You can barely stand.” She clenched her metal fist faux-menacingly. “I’d deck you.”

“Mmm,” Korra conceded.

“And I actually quite like it. S’no Donna Summer but …” Asami pulled a face. “It’s just that particular song is hardly … encouraging, y’know?” Korra raised an eyebrow. Asami sighed and rolled her eyes, a smile tugging at her cracked lips. “I’m dying on my feet here and it doesn’t help having you muttering ‘ _I was a so-o-ole_ survivor’ over and over.”

Korra’s laughter turned to painful coughing and Asami put an arm around her. Eyes streaming and voice a dry whisper, Korra grinned and, motioning to her chest to show she was talking about her coughing, she mumbled, “Don’t worry, ‘Sami. I … got the feeling you’ll outlive me.” Asami pursed her lips and took Korra’s hand in hers.

Asami and Korra staggered through the baking sand for miles. The desert shimmered and flickered and, though Asami found herself glimpsing crystal-clear pools of ethereal water in her peripheral vision, she didn’t see her father again. These innocuous, if disorienting, mirages persisted for what must have been several hours. This was probably why, when Asami saw a glint of metal in the sand about half a mile ahead of them, she didn’t say anything.

Unlike the visions of water that had been tantalising her all day, this metallic gleam didn’t fade as she got closer to it. In fact, quite the opposite, it got brighter.

She pushed the goggles up onto her forehead and ran dirty fingers through thick, greasy hair, frowning at the gleam in the sand.

Korra looked up at her and sighed in relief. “You can see it too, right?”

“Yeah. It … it looks like … sunlight reflecting off metal.”

Korra didn’t say anything but Asami could easily guess what was racing through her head.

Raava.

“We’re near where the flare was launched,” Asami muttered, looking up at the fronds of red smoke arcing over their heads. She lifted her heavy metal hand and pointed a stiff forefinger at the craggy wall of rock a little over a mile ahead of them that rose up out of the desert like a titanic tree stump, its roots stretching for leagues (did anyone still measure anything in leagues, Asami wondered to herself in her near-delirium) and petrified trunk shattered by lightning. Sand was climbing up its sides in golden waves, frozen as they broke against the rock. “I’m guessing the scavengers’ camp is the other side of that ridge.”

Glancing at each other fleetingly, they broke into a slow run, taking care not to slip in the shifting sand or trip over the rocks that the desert had wrested away from the rocky outcrop and scattered over the sands for miles around.

Korra stopped running once it became obvious that whatever was half-buried in the sand was not a ship and was, in fact, little bigger than a scarecrow.

Asami looked back but Korra waved her on. She peered through the glare, shielding her eyes with both hands.

The metal tripod was firmly anchored in the sand by rocks. Dangling between the three legs was what Asami thought was some kind of pendulum, though it didn’t swing.

Asami kept running, trying to decipher the purpose of this strange contraption, until, a few yards from the gleaming metal, she tripped on something almost buried in the sand. Spitting out a mouthful of sand, Asami sat up and blew the hair out of her face. As Korra ran to her side, Asami swept a thin layer of sand off whatever she had tripped on.

“You okay?” Korra panted as she dropped down next to her in the sand. Breathless, her eyebrows furrowed and she pointed at the smooth plate of blue glass Asami had exhumed from the sand. “Is that a solar panel?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Asami looked up at the metal poles stuck in the sand that had been catching the sunlight. She thrust her hand into the loose sand and pulled up a series of heavily insulated but shoddily repaired cables which ran from the solar panel to the tripod. “Must power that.”

“What is it?” Korra panted.

Asami shrugged which, with her heavy metal arm in its current condition, was a far from graceful motion.

She picked herself up out of the sand and, watching carefully for anymore solar panels, staggered to the tripod.

Upon closer inspection, Asami found that the softly whining pendulum was in actuality a small fuel or water drum wrapped in densely coiled wire. There must have been close to a mile of wire hanging between the tripod’s legs. Beneath the tripod, Asami found what looked like a car battery buried in the sand which was hooked up to the pendulum with ancient jumper cables. She dug deeper and found that the tubes with the automatic valves that were running from inside the drum down into the sand, fed into a cylindrical canister, cool to the touch. Visible beneath the rocks which Korra helped her move, was a network of cables, spreading out across the desert like roots which Asami supposed led to more solar panels.

“Looks like an EMP,” Asami said, gnawing a thumbnail.

“Like the one you built?”

“Nowhere near that powerful. No, this looks more like a baffler.”

“For blocking electronic transmissions,” Korra said. Her eyes had lit up. That’s why, so long after the EMP in the prison, she still hadn’t been able to make contact with Raava. This was blocking her. That’s what Asami guessed Korra was thinking, though she was not convinced. After all, Korra’s eye hadn’t rebooted yet. Asami was afraid that the sensitive and delicate cybernetic eye and communicator implants in her head had been damaged beyond repair by the pulse.

“Exactly. Hence the flares.” Sparing her thumbnail anymore torture and turning instead to the cuticle of her middle finger, Asami looked out across the rising sand to the ridge of red rock, the red smoke hanging in the air overhead. “We’re really close to the … camp, or whatever. There must be twenty or so of these things all around here. Any Empire drones overhead would just see this whole area as static, as a sandstorm or something. If the scavengers keep moving around, which you have to imagine they do, then no one would ever notice.”

“Should we … turn it off?” Korra asked hesitantly.

Asami finished with her middle finger and moved onto the next, chewing anxiously, excitedly. “Don’t know how many there are. Besides,” Asami smiled wryly, “may come handy.”

Korra nodded.

“Not far to go,” Korra whispered, looking past Asami to the ridge rising out of the sand.

Asami’s hand found Korra’s in the sand and they gripped each other tightly, bracing themselves for the final trek. ‘Final’ because, whether or not they found what they were looking for beyond that ridge, this would be the end.

The closer to the jagged ridge they got, the more difficult it became simply to stand upright, let alone to walk. The sand, buffeted by hot, sluggish winds for years, had formed steep banks against the ridge. The loose sand moved like something alive, swallowing their feet with every step and threatening to spit them back down the incline. As they waded through the quagmire of sand, Asami thought they would have to turn back at any second and begin the long, arduous journey around the ridge which could take days, when she suddenly felt rock beneath her feet.

After that, the climb became easier, though Asami was petrified of putting her foot down in the now shin-deep sand to find nothing but emptiness. Korra had spent her whole childhood crunching through soft snow and over treacherous glaciers, so she was not nearly as afraid of turning her ankle in a hidden crack in the rock as Asami was.

The higher they trudged, the thinner the sand became, until, at last, the sand was merely a dusting on the steadily steepening, scorched rock.

Asami wiped the sweat from her forehead, surprised that she had anything left in her even remotely like water. Above her, the wall of sand-scoured rock rose like high-rise concrete flats out of the sand. The rock formation was nowhere near that high, but to the exhausted Asami, it may as well have been.

The yellow flares had faded hours ago, but, partially obscured at this angle by the wall of rock, the red flare still hung in the sky, pulsing with bursts of light every few minutes.

They skirted the edge of the ridge, where it became too steep for even wind-swept sand to climb, looking desperately for a way up.

After what felt like hours, days even, though Asami noticed the suns had barely moved in the sky, they quite literally stumbled across a large section of crumbling rock that had been torn away from the ridge by the incessant erosion of the wind-borne sand. As the boulders had tumbled down the ridge, they had carved out a steep, though climbable, crevice that twisted nearly the entire way up the ridge.

Scree crunched and scraped beneath their boots as they trudged up the narrow path. Asami wanted to reach out for Korra’s hand, but she needed both to climb. So did Korra. Instead, Asami hummed the song which she had so recently chastised Korra for singing. Korra joined in and, as they climbed, breathless and dizzy with heat and exhaustion, they did their best to outdo each other.

Korra led the way up the escarpment, squeezing through narrow cracks in the rocks when the path carved by the falling rock was too steep to climb and testing footholds. The muscles in her shoulders and back rippled and Asami couldn’t help but smile a little. She wanted to touch Korra’s sun-kissed flesh. Taste it, smell it, but most of all, touch it. She wanted to hold her, to be held. More than once, she considered asking Korra if they could rest in the shade of this or that rock for a while in the hope that Korra would rest her head on her shoulder or hold her hand or touch her face.

But the shade amongst the rocks was sparse and the rocks seemed to radiate heat like an engine meaning that what little shade there was would not have been all that cool anyway. Besides, Asami couldn’t help but feel selfish. So she said nothing, just hummed and thought about her bubble bath as she climbed.

By the time the ridge levelled out and the climb ended, Asami’s entire body was aching and shaking.

Korra pointed to where the faint tail of red smoke that had followed the flare up on its ascent vanished into the jagged rocks to her left. “There.”

As they picked their way cautiously along the ridge towards the smoke, misshapen rock battlements sand-whipped and crumbling around them.

They came across two more metal tripods hidden among the rocks, each one surrounded by sand-dusted solar panels and connected to battery backups and canisters of coolant. Soon after the second tripod, the ridge dropped away suddenly in front of them and curved sharply to their left.

 The air stunk of engine oil and smoke, and directly over their heads for the very first time, the red flare was, at last, beginning to fade away.

The ridge seemed almost to fold in on itself, a tight horse-shoe of rock forming a bay sheltered on three sides. Below them, huddled in that meander of rock, were the remains of an encampment. High above the mouth of this alcove, Asami could make out abandoned tents and dugouts, discarded litter and supplies, heaps of gutted machinery and scrap metal, and broken bodies scattered over the sand.

And, looming over it all, pockmarked and scorched, was a ship. 

Asami heard Korra gasp raggedly, heavily. When she turned to look at her, tears were streaming down Korra’s grimy cheeks and dripping from her chin. Korra dragged her forearm over her eyes, laughing and sobbing at the same time.

"Korra?" Asami whispered, tentative metal fingers touching Korra's arm.

Korra wiped her nose and sniffed, gasping loudly again. 

“Raava!” she spluttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh ... fucking finally.


	20. Chapter 20

Korra’s tears dried quickly. Asami wasn’t surprised. Despite the water they’d found, they were both running on empty as they climbed down the steep rock face, down into the scavengers’ camp.

Korra was like a mountain goat as she bounded from one outcrop to the next, though she was nowhere near as graceful. She wasn’t all that surefooted either; her boots scraped and skidded on the rock, showers of gravel and sand racing her down to the ground, and she collided with as many rocks as she avoided. Before they were halfway down, she was already gleaming with sweat, panting heavily, and grazed and bleeding. Perhaps it was this reckless, breakneck attitude that made Asami think of goats.

Asami had taken her boots off and discarded her holed socks, placing more trust in her bare feet than the battered old work boots she and Korra had. The laces tied together and the boots draped around her neck, Asami followed Korra, her heart in her dry, sore throat. Her feet were soon black with dirt and she was bleeding from both heels and several toes. The rock was jagged and hot, and Asami had to bite back the pain as she edged down after Korra, but it made the descent slightly easier.

It was about twenty minutes before she felt soft, warm sand crunching beneath their feet and between her toes. Somehow, that handful of minutes felt longer than their entire time lost in the desert. Asami was reminded of that last, sleepless night in the prison. Waiting for the EMP to go off had felt longer than all the years she had spent in that prison. She had heard inmates saying that the shorter sentences went slower, were more painful in some ways, than the ones that lasted decades.

Asami curled her toes in the sand, deciding that, after all, sand was not all that bad. She still ached for the snow and ice she had been dreaming about for the last few hours, but the sand was a welcome relief to her aching, bleeding feet.

Korra had been practically vibrating with anticipation and joy on their way down, but now, in the scavenger’s camp, she seemed strangely tense and still. Again, Asami was reminded of that last night in their cell. Korra had been just as tense then as she was now.

To Asami’s surprise, Korra turned and, wrapping her arms around her waist, she pulled Asami into a tight hug. Asami felt Korra’s nose against her neck and lips against her collarbone.

Korra didn’t say anything, but Asami knew that if she could, she’d be crying.

Dropping her boots, Asami stroked Korra’s sand-heavy hair and pressed a metal palm between her shoulder blades.

“Let’s go get your girl, huh?” she whispered.

Korra nodded.

“Just … just wanna stay like this for a bit,” she said, lips and breath brushing the sand from Asami’s skin.

“You okay?”

Korra nodded.

“We’re so close. Something’s got to go wrong. I want to enjoy this for as long as possible.” Her strong arms squeezed tighter. “Stupid, I know.”

“It’s not stupid.” Asami kissed the top of Korra’s head. “We’ve been through so much to get here. And we won. We deserve to enjoy it.”

Korra’s hand found Asami’s and they began trudging through the camp together.

The encampment had clearly been a bustling hive of activity but, as they walked hand in hand between empty tents and still-smouldering campfires, an eerie graveyard silence clung to Asami, making her shiver.

The sand had been churned like a storm-swept sea by dozens upon dozens of running feet. Packets and cans of what looked like military rations had been left half-eaten beside the flapping canvas openings of the tents that dotted the sand like fungus. There was a quiet humming of machinery somewhere nearby and the creaking of little wind turbine made of scrap metal somehow made the silence all the more chilling and oppressive. Overturned fuel drums and spatters of blood stained the sand and it wasn’t long before Korra and Asami stumbled, literally, over some of the camp’s previous inhabitants.

The limp, burnt bodies were lying pinned beneath a crashed heli-jet. This one was a great deal smaller than the one that had crashed near Korra and Asami. It had been nearly completely stripped of everything except the bare necessities for flight to make way for about ten old oil drums. It seemed to have been converted into an airborne water tanker. Asami wiped her hand over a cracked cabin window and peered inside. Through the glass, a flicker of electric butterfly-blue caught her eye for a second, leaving Asami wondering if she’d seen anything at all.

A child’s doll – a hideous plastic monstrosity with frayed blue wires for hair – lay abandoned, half-buried in the sand. Asami nudged it with her toe, frowned and kicked sand over it before following Korra up onto the roof of a half-buried old tractor that had been raided for parts. 

Korra gazed up at her ship, shielding her eye from the glare of the suns with her bandaged hand. Her tears had left streaks down her dirt-and-sweat-smeared face like war paint.

Asami couldn’t help feeling as though she were intruding on a lovers’ reunion. She felt a flicker of jealousy towards the heap of scrap metal before smiling to herself and stamping it out. She let go of Korra’s hand, deciding to let her have her moment in relative private, but the moment her grip loosened, Korra’s hand had clasped tightly around Asami’s forefinger. Asami stroked Korra’s bandaged knuckles with her thumb and looked up at the rust bucket of a ship, trying to conjure the feeling awe and reverence or … whatever it was that was so clearly filling Korra.

“We found you,” Korra whispered over and over, fingers pressing white crescent moons into Asami’s palm. “We found you, girl.”

Though she dwarfed the primitive and salvaged machines in the camp, Raava was by no means a big ship which rather surprised Asami. She had been expecting something huge and impressive. But Raava was just an old, medium sized freighter, or at least she had been at some time.

Asami couldn’t help thinking that Raava looked like an enormous turtle. It was the little cockpit that did it. A tiny, beady-eyed head between hunched metal shoulders and the gentle but far from sleek curves of Raava’s hull. Definitely a turtle. In fact, beneath the peeling and scorched blue and white patterns painted on the hull, Asami could make out the decidedly turtle shell-like interconnecting hexagonal panels of the hull.

Over the – Asami guessed _centuries_ – the freighter had been the victim of countless upgrades, repairs, conversions, and retrofittings, each one making the one before redundant until the intended design of the original ship was almost impossible to distinguish. In fact, Asami could see where small shuttles and escape pods had actually been absorbed by the much larger ship. She was reminded of those little fish that latch onto sharks and wondered if they did that to turtles too.

One of the most recent and most obvious upgrades to the ship was the spirit drive that had been retrofitted. It looked like a huge glass and chrome water lily at the back of the ship, its gleaming petals half-open in the brilliant sunlight. She prayed that it was still working. She didn’t think she could fix a spirit drive in the middle of the desert and without one, they were screwed.

Like the rigging of a rusty old shrimp boat, retractable cranes with clamps and pincers, hooks and winches had been built into Raava’s hull, though they clearly hadn’t been used in decades. The cranes, not to mention the massive clusters of searchlights around the cockpit, told of a past life as a deep space scavenger’s trawler.

Asami could also make out the mountings for guns and lances and harpoons dotted over the hull like barnacles, though she couldn’t see any actual weapons.

On either side of the ship were two huge, cumbersome … Asami could only really describe them as ‘pontoons’. Each one was many times the size of the little heli-jet that had crashed in the desert, and were almost as long as Raava’s hull, minus the cockpit and spirit drive. As far as Asami could tell and judging by the massive twin air-intakes, both of these ‘pontoons’ had originally been thrusters, added to the ship for in-atmosphere flight and, despite their far from streamlined design, Asami thought they would no doubt make the ship far more manoeuvrable, especially during interstellar flight. They had been adapted at some point so that they could be used as floatation devices meaning Raava could land as easily in water as on land. That made Asami wonder whether she had been used for smuggling at some point, as well as scavenging.

Fully articulated and partially retractable landing gear with built in thrusters had since been added to the underside of both ‘pontoons’, replacing the landing gear that must have been in Raava’s currently submerged pot-bellied hold. There were three legs in each ‘pontoon’, making the metal turtle look more like some kind of insect-bison hybrid. These six legs were stuck somewhere between landing and thruster positions, making Raava look like a little child afraid to dip their toe in a cold swimming pool.

Asami couldn’t help but chuckle. She had character, there was no denying that, and she was far from unattractive. But Raava was, without a doubt, one of the most unusual and bizarre ships she had ever seen.

There was a hole torn in Raava’s side, the surrounding metal was a black-scorched bruise which Asami assumed had something to do with her getting shot out of the sky. Her gleaming, patchwork hull was mottled with rust and battle scars, and riddled with dents and unpatched breaches. If a ship could have woodworm, Asami thought with an already fond smile that Raava would have had it.

“She looks terrible,” Asami said, trying to sound sympathetic. It must have been difficult for Korra to see Raava in this state.

“Oh,” Korra sniffed and looked down at the sand then back and forth between Raava and Asami. “I … I was gonna say she didn’t look too bad.”

Asami bit her dry, swollen tongue.

“You weren’t kidding about finding her on a scrapheap, were you?” she said quietly.

Korra punched Asami in the arm and they both winced.

“How did they get her here?” Korra asked, rubbing her bandaged knuckles. “I’m sure she didn’t crash here. I mean, look, she’s just sitting there.”

“Some of these heli-jets are pretty strong,” Asami said, rubbing her arm. “A couple of them working together could have dragged her here through the sand. Would have taken a while but they could’ve probably used more of those bafflers while the patrols were looking for Raava.”

Korra squeezed Asami’s hand.

“She’s beautiful,” she whispered. Asami made a face and, despite having only one working eye, Korra caught her. “What?” she chided, tugging on Asami’s hand.

“Nothing,” Asami said, smiling and looking up at the huge, blue-and-white-painted, metal turtle-bison with the beetle legs. Korra elbowed her and Asami rolled her eyes. “She looks like a turtle.”

Korra sucked her teeth in mostly feigned annoyance, glanced up at Raava, frowned, and sighed.

“Shit. She does.”

“Like a six-legged turtle wearing a jetpack with a flower stuck up its …”

“Yeah, alright.”

Korra’s skin was almost glowing in the sunlight and as Asami watched trickles of sand and sweat running down Korra’s shoulders, she thought she might have some slight idea of what Korra was feeling as she gazed up at Raava.

Korra pulled her closer and rested her head on Asami’s shoulder.

“We’re finally home,” she sighed, and Asami felt a warmth rush through her that purged her of the last few years’ lingering cold.

“What’s she saying?” Asami asked, and then, biting her stupid, stupid tongue, she asked, “Can you hear her?”

Korra shook her head. “No,” she said, voice suddenly sounding very dry and tired.

“The bafflers are probably messing with your implants,” Asami said, trying to sound light-hearted and encouraging. “Raava’s probably fine. She’s clearly been through worse.”

That made Korra laugh, dry and nasally, but laugh all the same. “Yeah, she’s been through the wars a bit.”

“All of them by the looks of it,” Asami teased, only partly joking. Korra hit her playfully again and they grinned at each other. “But seriously, I’m betting it’s just your implants. Most of the damage looks mendable.” Asami realised a few seconds later that she was lying through her teeth. The damage to the hull looked superficial enough, and there was plenty of scrap metal lying around, but she hadn’t a clue how badly damaged Raava’s delicate inner workings were.

“There’s a hatch down there in the cargo bay doors,” Korra said, climbing down from the roof of the semi-entombed tractor and pointing over to where the ship’s pot-bellied hold sunk into the sand.

Asami breathed a long sigh of relief.

Korra looked up at her curiously as she helped her down to the ground.

“I was worried we’d have to find a way up there,” she said, gesturing up at the cockpit hundreds of feet above them.

Korra smiled and shook her head. “No, for once we get to take the easy way.”

As it turned out, Raava was in fact a bit bigger than Asami had realised, and a good deal further away. She could barely stand by the time she was within spitting distance of the ship’s metallic belly, not that she could have spat to save her life. Sinking slowly to the ground in a controlled collapse, her back to the ship’s battered cargo bay doors and relishing the relative coolness of Raava’s shadow, Asami looked up at Korra.

Chewing her lip and frowning, Korra’s expression was far from reassuring.

“You found the hatch?” Asami asked.

“Yeah.”

Asami looked around. “Where.”

“About six feet beneath where you’re sitting.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, I don’t feel up to digging either.”

“No, I meant … If it’s under me, I’m gonna have to move, aren’t I?”

Korra smiled and leant down, planting a kiss on Asami’s forehead.

“We’re gonna need some spades or something,” she said. “You stay here. I’ll have a look around.”

Asami wanted to go with her. There could have been scavengers hiding somewhere or whatever had caused all of them to leave, not to mention die, could still be lurking around. She wanted to go with Korra but she couldn’t feel her legs and her skull felt about three times too small for her brain.

All she could manage was a rasped, “Be careful,” as Korra headed back to the cluster of empty tents, and when she was out of earshot, a whispered, “I love you.”

Waiting for Korra, Asami watched Raava’s shadow creeping across the sand and it wasn’t long before Si Wong’s brighter sun was sitting atop the rocky ridge and Asami was sitting in the last steadily melting sliver of shade.

Asami glared at the sun but it glared back, harsher and sterner, and she averted her eyes like a bashful child. Bright green lights danced in front of her eyes making her dizzy.

The afterglow was still seared into her eyes when Korra came back. When she appeared from behind the half-buried tractor, Asami’s heart leapt like she hadn’t seen Korra in years, and though she managed to stop herself from running to her and bundling Korra up in her arms and dusting the sand off her with kisses, she managed to push herself to her feet and wave to her.

Korra was grinning – spirits, Asami loved that smile – and brandishing a spade in one hand, and a heavily dented canteen in the other.

Korra refused to give Asami the spade so Asami refused to take the canteen when Korra handed it to her.

“If you’re digging, you’re drinking,” Asami insisted, arms folded, eyebrows furrowed and jaw set. She had practised that look in front of the mirror for years ever since she was ten and, on their way home one night, her mum had fought off a mugger using just that expression.

Korra folded, though she kept offering Asami water as she worked.

The intense heat of the day was ebbing slowly, though in the rocky alcove the evening came faster than it had out on the dunes, and every gulp of water Korra took from the canteen, she seemed to lose almost instantly in sweat. Her vest grew dark and soggy within minutes and clung to her skin. Droplets of sweat were soon running down her face, getting in her eyes, falling from her nose to the sand, and making her grip on the spade’s bent handle slippery and clumsy.

The sand was soon caked to Korra’s skin and clothes and bandaged hands. Dust wafted around her feet and mounds of sand grew around her.

Sand kept spilling back into the hole, as though the desert were healing itself, and Korra swore through her teeth as she dug the same spadeful of sand out a hundred times over.

Asami sat beside her and handed her the canteen whenever she grew too breathless to dig. She tried to talk to keep Korra’s mind off the clearly strenuous work, but she soon ran out of things to say. They never seemed to run out of things to talk about in prison, but Asami found herself sitting in silence, watching Korra dig, gnawing her cracked lip.

“Hey, Asami,” Korra said, pausing her digging to wipe her forehead on her vest, exposing her stomach.

“Yeah,” Asami said. She was only half-listening. Part of her mind shut down every time she saw Korra’s hipbones.

“I’m really … _digging_ … this spade,” Korra panted.

Asami groaned and fell back into the sand, feigning death. “You did it,” she sighed, staring up at the empty sky. “Your puns killed me. That was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Korra said, dumping a spadeful of sand over Asami.

Asami laughed until it hurt, which was almost immediately. When she’d caught her breath and dusted herself off, she told Korra about the holidays to the beach her dad had taken her on in the years after her mum had died, before he’d been completely swamped by work. Korra leant on her spade, beaming as Asami described the ice creams she’d gorged on, the sandcastles they’d built together, and the rock pools and antique shops they’d explored, and the naps her dad would pretend to take so Asami could bury him up to his neck.

Korra gave in and let Asami dig, though she said it would be for only a few minutes. While Asami wrestled with the spade, trying to get her metal hand to grip it properly, Korra reminisced about the snow-castles she’d built with Naga as a child. As Korra talked, stretched out on the sand beside Raava, tracing the scratches and seams of her hull, Asami realised what a lonely childhood Korra must have had out on that frozen outpost. The little girl inside Asami – the little girl whose dresses had never really fit her, who’d been too tall and too skinny to be pretty, who’d been too much of a girl to play with the boys but not enough of one to play with the girls, the little girl with the dead mum and the dad who may as well have been after a while, the little girl who always seemed to end up alone in the science lab or the library – fell deeper in love with Korra just as her heart broke for her.

Now that she had the spade, Asami refused to give it back and, despite Korra’s pleas, dug until the top of the hatch was visible. Korra then jumped into the hole with her, a stream of sand following her down, and together they dug with the hands.

This far down, the sand was almost cool to the touch, though not as heavy and damp as the sand Asami had used for her castles and for burying her dad all those years ago.

What had been just a trickle was becoming a pour, as their hole began to refill with sand. Hurriedly, almost panicked, Korra pulled on the sand encrusted manual release until Asami was afraid she was going to pass out from the strain.

“Come on, girl,” Korra hissed through teeth clenched so tightly it was astounding they hadn’t shattered.

Asami was about to suggest ramming the edge of the spade into it, when the heavy latch sprung open and a long, cold hiss of air escaped, spitting sand in Asami’s eyes.

She could feel Korra holding her breath as she pulled the thick door of the hatch open. It was stiff on its ancient hinges and sand washed through the dark opening into Raava’s hold with a sound like rushing water. A faint smell of stale air and engine oil mingled with the desert’s heavy, heady, salt and sun smell.

Korra turned to Asami and smiled as their fingers coiled.

“Welcome home,” Korra whispered and, hand-in-hand, they stepped over the threshold into the cold and promising darkness. 

Asami held her breath.

Inside Raava for the first time, Asami closed her eyes and held Korra’s hand tightly. The smell of engine oil and cold air was stronger now than the smell of sweat and sand.

Asami smiled and opened her eyes, though it was too dark to see anything. Even when Korra kissed her cheek, she didn’t see anything. As Korra’s kiss had landed more on her ear than her cheek, Asami guessed Korra couldn’t see much of anything either. She was sure that, if there’d been a little light, Korra would have noticed her burnt cheeks were burning even redder now.

Korra led Asami by the hand. She moved quickly and quietly. Asami was sure she’d bang into something in the almost total darkness, but Korra knew Raava like she knew herself. Probably better than she knew herself, Asami thought, squeezing Korra’s fingers and holding her metal hand defensively in front of her face.

Inside the ship, with no wind or constantly shifting sands, silence reigned. In the darkness, her senses felt heightened, honed. The only sound besides her own pulse and excited breathing, came from the metal grates, cold and slick with condensation under Asami’s bare feet, that rung slightly with every step, echoing off the unseen walls of the hold.

Asami bet the hold was riddled with hidden panels and secret hiding places. A ship like Raava was bound to have her secrets.

Asami’s eyes very slowly grew used to the darkness, but there was very little to see. The hold was bigger than she’d expected, and piled high with spirits knew what. She was only just growing used to the darkness, and Korra was tearing along the walkways and gantries, so Asami only got a vague, shadowy idea of what the hold was like before Korra had led her up a ladder, as cold and as slippery as the hold’s walkways.

At the top of the ladder, Korra let go of Asami’s hand and she felt panic burning in her veins for a second before fingers brushed her back and a quiet voice whispered, “Hang on, I’m still here,” and Asami breathed deeply, relieved.

After a clattering of metal and plastic and Korra’s muttered swearing, a bright beam of torchlight cut through the darkness, blinding her. Shielding her eyes, the afterglow faded and she could see Korra grinning, a large torch in her hand and pointed at the ceiling. Korra took Asami’s metal hand and swung the beam down the passageway.

“Watch out for the mess,” Korra said as they followed the circle of light down the corridor. At Asami’s feet, an overturned toolbox had emptied its contents over the floor. She almost stepped on a screwdriver before she remembered her bare feet.

The inside of Raava was just as much a mismatched, patchwork mess as the outside. The corridors Korra led her down were narrow, though high-ceilinged and, assuming the power ever came back on, would be fairly well lit judging by the large floor-to-ceiling light panels in the walls. Rungs in the ceiling, for use in zero gravity, were choked by leaking pipes and cables and wires that had been added to the ship over the years. Some hung from the ceiling, cut, frayed, broken, limp dead things, while others seemed to hum and pulse like blood vessels.

Dust motes swirled lazily in the torch’s beam like sleet. Shadows quivered and danced around them and the ship creaked and groaned softly. Asami’s skin was crawling, awash with static, and she held Korra tightly. After the heat of the desert, Asami felt suddenly, frightfully cold. Her sweat seemed to be freezing on her skin and she could see Korra’s breath fogging in the torchlight.

“You cold?” Korra whispered. Asami wasn’t sure why she was whispering, but felt that it was probably appropriate. There was something of the graveyard’s silence and stillness in Raava, but also the feeling that something, powerful and dangerous, was asleep down below and was not to be awoken.

“Yeah,” Asami whispered, pulling closer to Korra. “I’m kind of loving it.”

“Me too,” Korra said. “When the engines are fired up, it gets sweltering. The climate controls can never keep up. But when she’s just drifting, it’s lovely.”

Korra led Asami through warped bulkheads and rusty airlocks, up wonky ladders and steeply spiralling staircases, past a cluster of pumps that were so ancient Asami was only half-joking when she said they turned her on a little. All the while, even as she laughed quietly with Korra, and mentally undressed machinery that belonged in museums, Asami was thinking of those long hours of drifting through empty space, Raava being so cold that they had no other choice but to snuggle for days under a ridiculous number of duvets. Or sweating together in the overheating engine rooms as they tore through dimensions. Every second of contact would be almost too much to bear but they wouldn’t be able to resist touching each other, and the sticky, sweaty, breathless sex they’d have would leave them almost comatose.

Assuming she could get Raava in the air again.

“Almost there,” Korra whispered as they walked up a steep staircase, and despite the cool metallic air, Asami panted and sweated more than she had out in the desert. Her thighs were cramping, her chest was aching, and her blistered and bleeding feet were ready to give up.

A faint pink glow seemed to suffuse the steep passage, though Asami couldn’t tell if it was leaking through windows higher up, or coming from something else.

The stairs were covered in a coarse, worn carpet that may once have been soft and luxurious. Asami couldn’t make out the colour in the dim light, but intricate patterns were visible, though badly faded and stained.

Wires and pipes were running in tangled lattices above Asami’s head, just as they had throughout the maze of passages they had taken. As the faint light grew, Asami noticed that not all of the pipes and wires were quite what they had seemed. Emerging from vents and forcing their way through bent and broken panels, thick and gnarled vines were twisting and writhing, interwoven with the machinery, searching in slow motion for sunlight, making do instead with electric lights, and lapping the condensation from the metalwork. Asami reached out a tentative hand to touch one low-hanging tendril. She touched it gently, half-expecting it to just be melted plastic or a thick rope of electrical wires, but it was soft and fleshy to the touch, almost moist, and a faint smell like compost, rust, and cut grass was left on her fingers.

“There’s something growing in your ship,” Asami said.

Without even looking to see what she was talking about, Korra said, smiling, “Roots and offshoots from the spirit drive,” and continued her two-at-a-time stride up the stairs.

“Seriously?!” Asami recoiled from the vine like she’d touched a venomous snake. “You know how dangerous that is?”

“It’s fine,” Korra said, running her fingers along one of the moss-covered tendrils. “She likes me.”

“It’s a plant,” Asami said, more derisively than she’d intended. “It’s amazing, she must be huge,” she said, meaning what she said and hoping to make up for the unintended sneer in her voice.

“She’s a beaut,” Korra said, smiling back at Asami and offering her a hand which was gratefully accepted. “She’s from the first crop that came through the gates. She’s taken a real shine to Raava. There are vines running all through her.” She held her bandaged hand up to the torchlight, her fingers laced through Asami’s metal fingers as if showing how the machine and the living thing were woven together.

“Probably the only thing holding her together,” Asami said and Korra laughed softly in agreement.

A little over halfway up the stairs, Asami was sick. Little more than a mouthful came up. She hadn’t eaten in so long and was so dehydrated that she was surprised anything came up at all. She leant over, a hand on her knee, and wiped her mouth and breathed slowly, deeply.

When she’d recovered, Korra was waiting for her at the top of the stairs in front of a half-open airlock that – if it weren’t permanently jammed, as Korra told her apologetically – opened in segments like a fan.

Shielding her eyes against the dying sunlight streaming through the huge, tinted windows, Asami squeezed into the cabin.

The cramped flight deck smelt like stale cigarette smoke, rust, burnt electrical wiring, and countless years’ worth of dirt and old leather. It probably smelt like home to Korra, Asami thought.

The shutters had been rolled back and the cabin was cast in the twilight-pink glow of a sun setting behind the ridge. Like the vines that had been growing in the passageway, bundles of cables were hanging from the low ceiling and were strewn across the floor. There didn’t seem to be an inch of the flight deck that wasn’t covered in wires, switches, dials, archaic analogue displays, levers and pedals, or Korra’s dirty laundry.

Children’s toys with cartoonishly large heads that wobbled every time she or Korra moved were arranged on the control panels. Raava wasn’t sitting straight in the sand and the cabin slanted slightly to one side making it hard to stand, and Asami guessed that the bobbleheads were glued in place. A big, battered plastic box with speakers was secured to the top of the main panel with peeling duct tape, and sad, wilted food and drink packages were scattered across the floor.

Korra’s fingers slipped out Asami’s like sand. She sat down in the big, creaking deep-blue leather chair and sighed. She pulled a stiff lever between her legs and the chair clanked forwards on runners in the floor so that she was amidst the control panels. There was a deep tear in the back of the pilot’s seat, and the deep-blue was stained a dark red-brown around the wound in the leather, a wound that Asami knew matched the scar between Korra’s shoulder blades and the scar running down her sternum.  

Asami stood next to her, a hand on her shoulder. Korra seemed stunned, as though she had woken up from a dream, or expected to do so at any second.

Asami leant down and kissed the top of Korra’s head, rubbing her shoulder. Korra smiled and looked up at her, eyelids heavy and lips parted.

Hand moving from shoulder to cheek, Asami thought they were going to kiss, but Korra swallowed awkwardly and whispered, “We made it. I can’t believe we actually made it.”

Asami bit her dry lip and smiled. “Do you …?” she said, gesturing to the controls, voice choked slightly.

Korra nodded and leant forwards, nails digging into the yellowed stuffing that was spilling through the cracked leather armrests, and cleared her throat.

Korra looked up at Asami, and she smiled encouragingly.

Korra ran her fingertips over the closest control panel, steadying her ragged breathing.  

“Raava?” Korra whispered, rubbing the dust from her fingers.

Nothing happened.

Asami held her breath between her teeth.

“Raava? You there?” Korra asked again, voice breaking slightly.

Asami crouched down beside Korra and stroked her tattooed arm soothingly. She wanted to hold her, but sudden doubts plagued her. She had her ship back now. What if Raava was fine? Would Korra even need Asami anymore? For a fleeting second, Asami hoped that Raava’s CPU had been fried and that she wouldn’t have to share Korra with anyone, silicon or not. She squashed that thought almost as soon as it crept into her mind, hating herself for thinking it.

One last time, squeezing Asami’s hand, Korra whispered, “Raava”, her forehead resting on the edge of a control panel.

Fleetingly, Asami thought she saw something glistening behind Korra’s eyelashes.

A crackling erupted through speakers hidden somewhere in the array of control panels and instruments above their heads. Korra looked up, rubbing away whatever had been in her eyes, and gnawed a cracked lip.

“ _kkkkk …_ ”

Korra sat bolt-upright in her seat, gripping Asami’s hand furiously as static crackled through speakers and across flickering displays.

“ _kkkk … kkkk … kkkk …”_

“Raava?!”

 _kkkk … kkkk … kkkk … kkkk … orrrr … ra._ ”

Korra laughed through the heavy tears forming in her eyes and pulled Asami into a neck-breaking hug. The static reached a crescendo then vanished and a soft, calm voice drifted through the speakers.

“ _Welcome back, Korra. Please state speed and course._ ”

Korra wiped her eyes and kissed Asami. Sinking back into the creaking leather, Korra sighed in relief.

“You’re not going anywhere, girl. Full damage report.”

“ _That information is not available._ ”

Korra frowned. “Why not?”

“ _Diagnostic systems are damaged._ ”

“How badly?” Korra asked.

“ _That information is not available as diagnostic systems are d-_ ”

Korra groaned.

“It’s okay,” Asami said, “I can work with that.”

Korra smiled sleepily, wearily, and ran a thumb across Asami’s cheek, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes.

“Raava,” Korra said, without taking her eyes from Asami, “I want you to meet Asami.”

“Hi, Raava,” Asami croaked, waving at the controls embarrassedly.

“She’s going to be staying with us for …” Korra smiled, “for quite a while. I want you to save her voice-pattern and respond to her commands.”

“ _Please wait._ ”

Korra seemed surprised. “Wait? Why? Raava … what’s wrong?”

“ _Massive data loss and corruption was sustained as a result of the attack and subsequent crash. Data backup was not possible due to emergency system shutdown._ ”

“How much have you lost?” Korra asked, looking like she might throw up.

 _“An estimated thirty-four to fifty-eight percent of memory has been lost. A more accurate estimate is not currently available._ ”

Korra stood up, wobbling slightly. Confused, Asami stood up too. She touched Korra’s arm but Korra didn’t react.

“Raava …” She could barely talk. “Raava, play Aang’s log.”

Korra clenched and unclenched her dirty, bandaged fists as they waited for a reply.

Coolly and serenely, Raava replied, “ _Files lost._ ”

Korra’s lip quivered and her throat closed. “All of them? What about the others’? Roku? Yangchen? Kyoshi?”

Another pause. Asami watched and waited as Korra’s heart broke in front of her, and she felt utterly, stupidly useless.

“ _No files found with designation: Captains’ Logs._ ”

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” Korra groaned. “No!”

She slammed a fist on the controls and the bobbleheads trembled.

“Korra …” Asami whispered.

“Search again,” Korra said, voice barely audible even in the cramped, quiet cabin.

“ _No files found with designation: Captains’ Logs,_ ” Raava said again.

Korra sunk into the chair, head in her hands. “Search again,” she whispered.

As Raava replied with the same monotone answer, Asami reached out and laid a hand on Korra’s shoulder.

She shrugged Asami’s hand away and whispered, “Search again.”

“I’m so sorry,” Asami whispered, but her sympathy just sounded empty and hollow. She stood there, an onlooker to a stranger’s grief, invasive and out of place.

She ducked out of the cabin and, looking back one last time, walked slowly down the stairs.

Now that Raava was awake, the lights flickered on sporadically, following Asami down through the ship. Despite the retreating darkness, Asami wandered blindly through the ship. She wanted desperately to get clean, to wash the sand and dirt and sweat of the desert out of her pores, and to get rid of the filth of the prison that she could feel, buried deeper in her skin.

Her eyes were stinging when sudden cramps in her stomach brought her to her knees. Waves of hot and cold washed over and under her skin and she retched emptily. Staggering to her feet after a few minutes, lightheaded and dizzy, Asami steadied herself against the side of the cylindrical passage.

“Raava …” she whispered. “Need a lie down.”

A hatch slid open in front of her and, barely able to walk, Asami managed to slide down through the opening. Her bare feet found the ladder rungs easily but, after several rungs, her metal hand slipped and she tumbled down to the floor.

Groaning and rolling over, Asami opened her eyes slowly and swore under her breath.

“Thanks, Raava.”

She was lying on the floor of a dimly lit sitting room. A large, ugly blue sofa dominated one wall and on the other was a kitchenette, cupboards thrown open and food cans scattered over the floor. The slightly curving floor confused Asami for a minute before she realised that she wasn’t concussed, but that Raava must have a centrifuge.

She got carefully to her feet. Relieved that nothing was broken, she stepped around a low, possibly Japanese table that was bolted to the floor and headed to the kitchen. The room was surprisingly large, though sparsely decorated. There was exercise equipment in one corner and colourful drapes were pinned to the inwardly sloping walls.

An old but still gleaming sword with a dark blade hung above the sofa. She wondered if it was Zaheer’s katana but the dark blade was straight and double edged. A jian, she realised, remembering her father’s small collection.

Asami picked up a cracked teapot emblazoned with dragons that she had almost trodden on, and set it down carefully on the low table.

After almost throwing up again in the kitchen sink that was overflowing with chipped dishes, Asami dragged her fingers through her hair and groaned.

Her head felt light and empty, as though her brains had leaked out of her ears. Gripping the edge of the sink, she turned on the faucet. The pipes rattled and groaned. Asami’s swollen tongue ached as the tap gurgled. At last, a trickled of water dribbled into the sink. Asami hit the tap, it gurgled again, and then suddenly water was cascading over the dirty dishes.

Lips to the tap, Asami drunk deeply. She drank so much she thought she was going to burst, and she could taste the coppery tang of blood in her mouth mingling with the water’s slightly stale, recycled taste. But it was cold and clean and Asami didn’t think she’d tasted anything so good before in her life.

After she’d drunk her fill, she threw up into the sink, then drank some more. Once she’d rinsed the taste of sand and stomach acid out of her mouth and washed her hand and face about a hundred times, Asami sat down heavily on the sofa. Uncomfortable though the sofa was, her eyelids closed slowly as exhaustion took over.

She wondered if Korra was okay. She shouldn’t have left her alone up there, Asami thought.

Forcing herself up onto her aching feet, she paced up and down the cluttered lounge. Trying to stay awake, she read the spines of the weathered books and magazines stuffed into the shelves lining the walls near the pile of exercise equipment. Her eyes wouldn’t focus and she’d broken her glasses, so she examined the hoard of worthless knick-knacks, once-treasured souvenirs that looked older than Korra, and a surprising array of valuable relics from the Hundred Year War and before. One of Asami’s favourite things amongst all the junk, was a metallic fan, still gleaming and razor sharp after so long as a bookmark in an old medical journal.

On top of a pile of magazines, Asami found something else that intrigued her. She blew the dust off it and turned it over curiously in her hands.

A company name had been printed in bold black letters across the lurid orange box though they had faded into illegibility. A cassette player, Asami realised. These things had become incredibly valuable during the Hundred Years War. How Korra had got her hands on this one, let alone the massive one up in the cockpit, Asami had no idea.

Unravelling the cable, she put the headphones on carefully, and as there was already a tape inside, she cautiously pressed a random button, wondering whether it would still work. The box whirred softly and, loud and tinny, music blared through the headphones. Asami closed her eyes as a woman sang, her voice ethereal and distant, fragile and beautiful, yet cutting through the synthetic notes and crashing drums with a confidence and strength that sent shivers down her spine.

“ _… like candy in a blue blue neon glow …_ ” she sang, and Asami found herself drifting, fading.

She swayed slightly, almost but not quite dancing. She imagined Korra’s arms around her as she drifted across the imaginary dancefloor, and then, not surprising her at all, Korra’s arms really were around her waist.

She opened her eyes and smiled. Korra’s eyes were red, though almost completely dry.

Asami felt Korra’s nose against her neck and lips against her collarbone.

Korra didn’t say anything, but Asami knew that if she could, she’d have been crying.

Asami slipped her arms around her, closing her tired eyes again. They danced slowly, wearily, clinging to each other, faces buried in necks until the song finished and the ancient tape player clicked to a halt, but neither of them let go.


	21. Chapter 21

Korra winced, sucking air noisily through her teeth as Asami unwound the blood-stained, sand-encrusted bandages from around her hand. The blood from Korra’s ragged knuckles had seeped into the coarse fabric, drying hard in the desert heat. Though Asami was gentle, with every strip of frayed bedsheet she removed, a scabbed wound opened and Korra’s fingers were soon wet with thick, sticky blood. Though it hurt her to see Korra in pain, Asami thought it was probably for the best – Korra’s wounds had collected a fair bit of sand and dirt since the prison riot and had yet to be properly cleaned.

Korra leant forwards towards the bottle in her lap, her hands still in Asami’s, and managed to capture the straw between her teeth. The bottle rattled as Korra drained the last few dregs, emptying her fifth such bottle in as many minutes.

Korra sighed and shook her head slightly, flicking the dirty strands of hair out of her eyes. She smiled at Asami. It was a strange smile, and Asami decided not to analyse it just then. Instead, she guided Korra’s hands down to the rim of the small glass bowl that was sitting between their crossed legs on the floor. Asami had found a first aid box amid the clutter in the lounge, and amid the clutter in the box, she had managed to find a small fistful of cotton wool.

Tearing off a piece, Asami glanced at Korra and said quietly, “I hope this doesn’t hurt too much.”

Korra smiled, though behind the smile her teeth were clenched.

Asami dipped the piece of cotton wool into the cooled boiled water – thank the spirits the kettle had only been dented in the crash, Asami thought – and, after letting the excess water drip back into the bowl, every drop resounding off the metal walls and visibly sending shivers echoing along Korra’s spine, Asami ran the damp cotton wool down one of the ten dark, bruised, bleeding fingers. Korra’s breathing changed slightly, but she didn’t wince again.

Water flecked with dark blood dripped into the bowl from Korra’s fingertips. Asami held Korra’s wrist with her heavy metal hand as she cleaned the dirt and blood and sand from Korra’s knuckles. She discarded the first piece of blood-stained wool after only two knuckles. Soon, a small pile of bloody and sodden cotton wool sat beside her on the carpet.

Asami wiped and dabbed at Korra’s wrist where the explosive bracelet had rubbed her skin raw, cleaning it of the sand that had embedded itself in her flesh.

Water fell into the bowl like bloody raindrops, heavy and loud.

Asami glanced up as she cleaned Korra’s hands tenderly. Her mismatched-blue eyes were closed, lips open slightly. Asami dabbed a small amount of an antiseptic cream onto a fresh piece of cotton wool and applied it carefully to Korra’s skinned – but no longer bleeding – knuckles. Korra smiled with her lip between her teeth, caught somewhere between pain and ecstasy.

“Stay there,” Asami whispered, getting slowly, painfully to her feet and taking the bowl over to the sink where the kettle had finished boiling again. She emptied, cleaned, and refilled the bowl, and sat back down beside Korra.

Asami’s fingers ran smoothly and slowly along Korra’s arm, from her dripping hand to her sun-scorched shoulder. Korra’s breath shuddered. Raking Korra’s hair back out of her face, tucking the more defiant strands behind her ear, Asami examined the partly healed gash above Korra’s eye. She had cut herself there during the riot and the blood had filled her blind cybernetic eye. Since then, most of the blood had been washed, blown, or rubbed away, but the wound was still open – though clogged with sand – and clumps of dried blood still clung to Korra’s eyelashes.

With her metal hand on Korra’s cheek, she dabbed carefully at the wound as water ran down Korra’s cheek like tears.

When she’d finished, Korra opened her eyes and turned slightly towards her. Asami’s metal fingers ran down Korra’s cheek to her chin where they stayed as Korra leant closer. Korra’s eyes darted down – to Asami’s lips or to the cotton wool in her hand, Asami couldn’t tell – and back up to her eyes again.

Korra’s breath on Asami’s lips was warm and the salty-sweet smell of her skin rose above the sharp smell of disinfectant that had been filling the cool room. Asami wanted to kiss her, but just as she was about to close the inch-wide gap between their cracked lips, she felt Korra pry the last piece of clean cotton wool out of her fingers.

Asami’s body relaxed, deflated, and Korra dipped the wool into the water, just as Asami had been doing. She combed the greasy hair out of Asami’s face and, as Asami frowned in confusion, Korra touched the wool to Asami’s forehead.

“Ow! Shit!” Asami yelped, touching her forehead tentatively.

“Sorry! Shit, I’m sorry!” Korra croaked, eyes wide. “You cut your forehead pretty badly when the shuttle crashed. I … I was gonna try cleaning it.”

Asami looked at her fingertips, flakes of dry blood-soaked sand crumbling. “I forgot about that.”

“Can I …?” Korra asked, the damp cotton wool hovering in her hand an inch or two from Asami’s forehead.

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Took me by surprise,” she chuckled, her nails digging into the old and fraying carpet.

Blood and water ran down Asami’s nose, and she could taste the metallic tang of it on her cracked lips. Korra tried to be gentle, but Asami had left the wound untended for so long that Korra had to almost literally dig the sand from it.

Korra dabbed the blood and water away with the corner of what she promised was a clean dishcloth, and applied the cold antiseptic cream with a fingertip.

As Korra emptied the bowl into the sink and refilled the bottle yet again, mixing in a packet of rehydration powder she had found, Asami ferreted through the first aid box, looking for more cotton wool, which she found, and bandages, which eventually she also found.

“Korra …” Asami said as Korra waited for the powder in the bottle to dissolve properly.

“Yeah.”

Asami held up the roll of duct tape she’d dug out of the first aid box. “What’s this doing in here? Please tell me you didn’t …”

Korra shrugged. “Mm-hmm.”

“And this?” Asami asked, eyebrow raised and holding up the half-empty tube of superglue.

Korra lifted up her vest a little, exposing a dark and twisting scar that vanished beneath the knotted jumpsuit sleeves around her waist. “Mm-hmm.”

“Spirits, you’re literally held together with paperclips and rubber bands, aren’t you?”

“Well, actually,” Korra said as she sat back down beside Asami and began rolling up a leg of her jumpsuit, “funny you should say that, because one time I …”

Laughing hoarsely, Asami covered her eyes with her metal hand and shoved Korra away. “I don’t want to know!”

Asami opened her eyes again and sighed. Korra held her gaze and smiled slightly. In comfortable silence – warm-bed-on-a-cold-and-rainy-morning comfortable – Asami soaked pieces of cotton wool in rubbing alcohol, placed them carefully over Korra’s brutalised knuckles, and wrapped her hands and cotton wool in the strips of gauze she’d dug out of the first aid box. The rubbing alcohol stung Asami’s grazed and blistered hand, she could only imagine how it much it stung Korra’s skinned knuckles, but Korra flexed her fingers appreciatively when Asami was finished.

Smoothing out the bandages, Asami ran her fingertips gently and lovingly over Korra’s hands as though she had sculpted them from warm and bleeding granite herself, then up her arms, to her shoulder and her face. Korra’s clean and bandaged hands were on Asami’s waist, holding her firmly, not pulling her closer but not pushing her away either.

Asami rose to her knees, Korra’s head tilted back as she looked up at her. Asami’s eyelids were sore and heavy and they closed before she’d even felt Korra’s lips on hers. Korra tasted different. Not better or worse. Just different.

Asami looked down at Korra with half-lidded eyes. “Come to bed with me?” she whispered.

Korra smiled and ran a bandaged hand through Asami’s dirty and tangled hair. “Please,” she whispered, planting feather-light kisses along Asami’s shoulder as she summoned the energy to stand.

Asami helped her to her feet and stood for a moment, swaying dizzily as she held Korra’s hand.

“I don’t know where your bedroom is,” Asami confided quietly, sleepily, and chuckling as though she were drunk.

Korra laughed and led Asami by the hand down a darkened corridor, tracking sandy footprints behind them.

Korra’s room was small. There was a wide bed in a deep recess in one wall, piled high with cushions and pillows and blankets and rugs and strung around with warm-yellow fairy lights that flickered into life as they stumbled into the room. Thick shag carpets and thicker furs decked the floor and Asami curled her sore bare feet into them appreciatively. The metal walls were painted a deep, dark, peeling blue. The rust and rivets, pies and vents shared the metalwork with torn and crumpled posters of actors and actresses – some clothed and some less clothed – and shelves and boxes filled every other space, each one overflowing with knick-knacks and curiosities and empty bottles that stood proud like trophies. It smelt of dust and smoke and another lifetime’s Korra.

It was the most inviting and wonderful room that Asami had ever seen.

Korra sat down on the edge of the bed, looking half asleep already.

Asami looked down at her clothes: the orange jumpsuit and the grey vest, caked with sand, dirt, grease, and blood. Revulsion filled her. With the last of her strength, she tore off her clothes, almost falling over in her hurry, and stood naked and proud, glaring at the pile of clothes at her feet. She wasn’t going to be a prisoner any longer.

She fumbled with her scorched cybernetic arm clumsily and that too fell limp and dead at her feet.

Korra looked down at the dirty uniform lying twisted and empty on the thick carpet, blinked twice, and tore off her own prison clothes as though they were burning her. Asami helped her with the sand-filled boots and climbed into bed next to her.

Lying naked, the blankets under her and next to the far wall of the recess, the air was cold against her skin and made her tingle. She pulled Korra closer, her dry, sandy skin delightfully warm and familiar. She felt like they were back in their cell, only safer and happier, on cleaner sheets and a softer, though creakier, mattress. Korra wrapped her arms around Asami like she always used to, stroked circles over her skin from her ribs to her hip and along her thigh like she always used to, and Asami smiled like she always used to.

“I could sleep for days,” Asami whispered. And she did.

*

Korra woke up, minutes or hours later. Everything hurt. Her mouth was dry and her skin prickled to the unexpectedly cold air. She felt alone and the almost permanent knot of anxiety in her stomach tightened.

Aang was gone.

Someone snorted beside her and Korra sniffed back the tears that had threatened to erupt. She rolled over and pressed her body close to Asami’s, smiling slightly as she drifted back to sleep.

*

Asami woke up, hours or days later. For a moment she didn’t know where she was. Her skin was deliciously cold and she could hear the faint and far off drip-dripping of condensation on hollow metal. She thought she was back in the prison for a second before remembering where she was.

Her arm was numb and she blinked the sleep out of her eyes. She was lying on her back, legs and arm spread like a starfish. Korra was curled up next to her, a hand on Asami’s rising and falling stomach, her head on Asami’s arm.

Asami smiled, slipped her arm out from under Korra, and pulled one of the many blankets up over them. Korra muttered sleepily, pulled Asami closer, and they both fell headlong back into dreamless oblivion.

*

Korra woke up, days or weeks later. She woke slowly, in stages, not all at once. She felt Asami’s body against hers and smiled. Their legs were entwined, tangled with a blanket she didn’t remember putting over them and that they had obviously tried to kick off as they slept.

Her throat hurt, her lips were dry, and her mouth felt like something had died in it, and then whatever had died had been eaten by something else that had had a severe case of food poisoning and also died in her mouth.

Her knuckles stung, but it was a different pain from the constant dull throbbing that had been plaguing her for so long.

As she became more awake, she became more aware of Asami. Her dry and sandy naked skin was pressed against hers. She could smell Asami, hear her heart beating, she could practically taste her. She held Asami in her arms, felt her ribs beneath her skin, felt the muscles rippling as she breathed. She could feel the warmth between Asami’s legs and she could feel Asami’s soft bosom against her chest. (Korra chuckled slightly to herself. She liked saying ‘bosom’.)

Korra ran her bandaged hand along Asami’s side, following her undulating form from her hip to her ribs and curling her fingers into the tangled hair that spilt across her shoulders. Her skin was like vinyl: every groove, scratch, and contour in her otherwise smooth surface was music to Korra.

Hours passed, and Asami slept peacefully as Korra lay beside her with heavy, sore eyelids, listening to her shallow, slow breathing. Asami’s arm cradled Korra’s head as she slept, her hand against her back, unconsciously brushing her bruised and goose-bumped skin.

Gradually, Korra’s sleep-sticky eyes opened and she smiled. Her room was just as she’d left it, the dirty laundry and pillows piled high, the empty bottles in half-collapsed monuments to the gods of alcoholism and depression. Exactly as she’d left it. And though she’d lost Aang, against all the odds she’d found Raava. She’d found Raava and the warmth beside her in the bed was a reminder that, for the first time in years, she was not alone.

She blinked the sandy sleep out of her eyes and looked at Asami, still asleep in her arms. Her tangled black hair clung to her skin and her lips were pale and cracked. But, beneath the dull-yellow and neon-purple bruises and vibrantly red scrapes, scratches, and sunburn, Asami’s skin had turned a beautiful nut-brown from the sun. Her prison pallor was gone and, lying on the crumpled white sheets, she seemed to glow.

Laying her head against Asami’s chest, Korra closed her eyes. Korra ached for her … not like that, she was far too tired for that … Korra wasn’t quite sure what it was, but she needed her, she wanted her, and she craved her. She wandered whether she had felt like this in the prison, but she couldn’t remember a single time in her life when she hadn’t felt like this for Asami. She knew she loved her, she’d known that for a very long time, but this felt different somehow. Perhaps it was because they were out of prison now. She could leave at any time. Did that change anything?

Korra breathed the smell of Asami deeply – sand and sweat and skin – and decided to wait and see. To take her time. She wondered if she was afraid, and decided unashamedly that, yes, she was.

“You there, Raava?” Korra whispered, first in her head, and then out loud. There was only a reply the second time. Her implants weren’t working yet.

“ _Yes, Korra. Please state speed and course_ ,” Raava’s cool, distant voice answered, seemingly unconcerned that she would wake Asami.

“Sssh! Quiet,” Korra hissed, glancing at Asami. A herd of stampeding oboists couldn’t have awoken Asami.

“ _Do you need anything, Korra?_ ” Raava’s voice asked, slightly quieter.

“I missed you, Raava. Part of me was afraid I’d never see you again. How are you feeling?”

“ _There is still extensive damage to most systems. Exact data is unavailable. How are you?_ ”

Korra was slightly surprised by that question. “I’m … not bad, considering. Why … why’d you ask?”

“ _The wellbeing of the primary user is of paramount importance._ ”

Korra wondered whether – or rather hoped that – this was Raava’s way of telling her she cared.

“Thanks.” Korra stroked Asami’s hair. “How long did I sleep?”

“ _That data is unavailable._ ”

Korra sighed. “What data _is_ available?” she asked.

“ _Si Wong’s average yearly rainfall five years ago was reported by Earth Empire Research Team SW1003.B as less than 50 mm,_ ” Raava said, helpfully.

Korra laughed quietly.

“Raava, I’m … I’m sorry about what I said when … when I found out about the logs. About Aang. I was upset. I didn’t mean it.” There was no reply. Korra smiled, closed her eyes and whispered, to Raava and to the sleeping Asami: “I love you.”

Korra was just beginning to plan how she would extricate herself from Asami without waking her so that she could get water and the tape player, when Asami groaned and coiled like an angry cat on the mattress.

“Hey,” Asami croaked as her eyelids struggled to open under the tremendous weight of her eyelashes.

Korra sat up on an elbow and smiled. “Hey.”

“How long did we sleep?” Asami whispered, bleary-eyed.

“Years, probably,” Korra whispered, gently rubbing the sandy sleep from the corner of Asami’s eye with a thumb.

“Can we stay here forever?” Asami asked, rubbing herself slightly, and probably obliviously, against Korra, sending aching pangs through her body … Korra was apparently not _that_ tired after all … and closing her eyes again.

“We could …” Korra said. “But I would rather like to get off this shitting planet before I die in your arms.”

Asami smiled a pouty smile and kissed Korra’s forehead.

Asami’s legs rubbed against hers, and Korra felt a strange wash of panic. She had no idea what she was feeling anymore. Part of her was screaming at her to consummate the next chapter of their lives there and then with sweaty, sleepy sex. Another part was screaming just as loudly at her that Asami didn’t love her, or want her, or need her. It was screaming that Korra was just lonely and afraid and was about to make the biggest mistake of her already mistake-riddled life.

Korra untangled herself from Asami and sat up slowly, pulling the blanket up over her legs.

“I feel disgusting,” Asami said as Korra pretended to fiddle with the clean bandages around her hands. “I need an hour-long shower. I can’t believe you don’t have a bathtub,” she added, playfully spiteful. “After that, I’ll start doing repairs.”

“Thank you,” Korra said. “Raava … she means a lot to me and …”

Asami looked up at her and smiled sadly. “I know. And …” she looked like she’d decided not to say anything, but evidently changed her mind. “I’m sorry about … about Aang.”

Korra swallowed dryly.

“… thanks. Where … where are you gonna start, d’you think? With the repairs?”

“I dunno. I’ll see if the spirit drive’s working, I guess, but if that’s broken I doubt I can fix it here. Depends, really. I’ll let you know. Shit, I’m tired. I might just sleep for another few years, if that’s okay.”

Korra chuckled and sunk back down onto the mattress.

“Fine by me,” she sighed.

Korra smiled broadly and ridiculously as, sleepily, Asami picked up Korra’s hand by the wrist and began playing with her bandaged fingers. Korra almost fell out of the bed when Asami, snarling, pretended to take a big predatory bite out of one of Korra’s fingers.

Laughing, Korra pushed Asami away and was about to smother her in pillows and cushions – and perhaps kisses – but Asami hissed in pain and Korra halted her assault before it had begun.

“You okay?”

Asami sat up, stiffly and clumsily, and twisted around awkwardly, her tangled hair lifted to expose her neck and back. “I think I’ve caught the sun a little,” she said, dripping in sarcasm.

Asami’s shoulders, neck, and arm were a bright, raw red where her dirty prison vest had exposed her to the suns. Her scarred right shoulder had been more or less protected by the mechanical arm, though she had not worn it throughout their desert trek, and the mottled scar tissue was looking sore.

“It stings. Is it bad?” Asami asked, craning her neck.

“Not yet. Almost. Maybe. I’ll see if there’s any ice or anything,” Korra said, crawling stiffly out of the recessed bed.

“I heard fresh cucumber was good for sunburn,” Asami said, helpfully.

In the doorway, Korra rolled her eyes. “Okay, yeah, you stay here, I’ll pop down to the allotment.”

Asami smiled through half-lidded eyes. “Yeah, okay, point taken.”

Korra tiptoed down the dark corridor, the metallic cold air lapping at her bare skin.

The fridge and freezer were almost completely empty. Korra blew the dirty hair out her eyes and glared at the empty shelves. A few blocks of vile cheese, an empty can of synthetic whipped cream, and a grey mush that may once have been rehydrated fruit were the only things in there. Korra reached further inside, pushed aside an empty ice tray, and her fingers glanced against ice-cold glass. Breathing a sigh of relief, Korra pulled a forgotten bottle of beer out of the ever-expanding mound of frost and ice at the back of the fridge.

She peered at the frost covered label stuck to the brown glass. It wasn’t anything she used to drink. Her poison of preference had always been hard liquor and cocktails. She wondered whether it was one of the beers Mako had liked while they’d been together. As she tiptoed back to the bedroom, Korra realised it didn’t hurt to think about him anymore. She wondered, smiling, where he was and whether he’d finally pulled that stick out of his arse yet.

“This was all I could find,” Korra said as she climbed back into the bed.

Asami had stretched herself out on her stomach, face in the pillows. She turned her head slightly and smiled approvingly at the condensation falling in heavy clouds from the cold brown glass.

“You ready?” Korra asked. Asami nodded. Korra touched the bottle to Asami’s back gently and a ripple ran down Asami’s spine.

She gasped loudly and almost melted into the bedsheets. “That’s perfect!”

Korra rolled the bottle over Asami’s skin until the glass was almost lukewarm and Asami’s red, dry skin was pink and slick with condensation.

“Better?” Korra asked, peeling the soggy label off the bottle with a thumbnail.

“Much,” Asami said, rolling onto her side

Without realising, Korra had been taking care not to directly touch Asami skin while she soothed the burns, so when Asami sat up and touched Korra’s bare chest and placed a kiss on her cheek, it felt like electricity was burning under her skin.

Korra flicked the cap off the bottle with her thumb to Asami’s exaggerated and one-handed applause and they shared the bitter but cool beer together. Soon, the empty bottle joined its brethren in a partly completed pyramid in the corner of the room above a vent.

Stiffly and after several attempts, Asami climbed over Korra and pushed herself off the bed. She stretched, joints cracking loudly. She stood for a moment, her hand on her hip, scanning the messy floor. She bent down and picked up a crumpled blue-flowered kimono off the floor. Slipping it on, gasping slightly, she ran her hand over the silk, humming to herself and looking like she hadn’t felt anything so beautiful in years – which was quite possibly true. Korra smiled as Asami savoured the silk.

“I’m gonna shower. You want to join me?” Asami asked, running her hand over a silk-draped leg and smiling her wide mischievous smile.

Korra apologised and said her hands still hurt. Her knuckles were finally clean and bandaged properly and she didn’t want to disrupt their healing.

Asami pretended to pout before slipping out into the narrow corridor, leaving a trail of faint, sandy footprints as she went.

Korra had been sorely tempted to join her, and she was sure that they could have done plenty with just Asami’s hand, and there wasn’t anything wrong with her mouth. But it wasn’t just her injured hands. Korra couldn’t help worrying – knowing – that, in the prison, they had rushed headlong into whatever this was.

Now that they were finally free, Korra was determined to take her time, to wait until it felt absolutely right. She wanted to be sure without a shadow of a doubt that this was what they both wanted and needed. She wanted to be sure that they weren’t just being forced together by a craving for intimacy, or boredom, or fear.

Or at least that’s how she justified and rationalised the fear festering in her stomach.

“Down the corridor on the left!” Korra called out, flopping back onto the mattress. It felt good to be back in her bed, even better to share it with Asami. Korra glared at the pile of prison clothes on the carpet. She would burn them today, she decided. “You found it?!”

“Found it! Holy shit! Your shower is so clean!” Asami called from the cramped little cubicle down the corridor. “Well, I mean it’s not _that_ clean, but compared to what I’m used to … Shit, my standards are low now.”

Korra smiled and stretched her tired, bruised limbs. Half hidden by the discarded prison jumpsuits on the floor, another bruised and battered limb lay lifeless and limp. Korra frowned at Asami’s metal arm. It had been scoured clean in places by the sand so that it nearly gleamed in the dim light, while other sections had been scorched by the electricity of the weapon Asami had built into it, the melted and shattered remains of which still clung to the metalwork. The few remaining segments of synthetic skin were warped and twisted and stuck out like beetle wings. The arm looked dead and decayed.

Korra rolled over onto her stomach and closed her eyes. The sheets were already starting to smell of Asami. Korra couldn’t wait for that smell to be in Raava’s every nook and cranny. She wondered if the smell would change. She hoped it would. Korra imagined that before the prison and the desert, Asami had smelt of coffee and expensive perfume, engine oil and metal and sleepless nights. Korra wondered whether she would have smelt of cigarettes too.

“Asami?” Korra called. “Did you smoke before the prison?”

“Not regularly,” Asami said, poking her head around the door. “Maybe a pack a fortnight. Why?”

“Not important.”

Asami ran her hand through her tangled hair

“That was quick,” Korra said, sitting up and flicking a strand of hair out of her eye.

“You asked what I was going to fix first, right?” Asami said, pulling the kimono back on. “Well, it seems like it’s gonna be the shower.”

Korra pulled on a creased shirt that was too long yet too tight around her arms and had once belonged to one of Aang’s crew – anything else would have felt too hot, too constricting – and, after taking a detour through the kitchen, she followed Asami into the bowels of the centrifuge. While Korra had been piling a plate high with crackers and dried fruit and tinned meat and stale cakes and microwaved pop tarts, Asami had removed a grill in the floor. She was waist deep in pipes and valves and pumps by the time Korra returned with the food and two bottles that had once contained something which, for legal reasons, could not be called vodka and now were filled to the brim with tap water.

Asami had, begrudgingly, swapped the kimono for stained, blue dungarees and a loose moth-eaten white shirt that didn’t irritate her burnt skin too badly. Her tangled hair was piled up in a messy bun and wrapped in a frayed red rag.

“Mmm,” Korra said, mouth full and sitting on the edge of the hole the grill propped against the wall had covered, “very Roxy the Riveter!”

Asami made a face somewhere between amusement and weariness. “Rosie the Riveter.”

Korra stuffed another piece of dried mango into her mouth, followed by a pop tart, hardly chewing. “Pretty sure it’s Roxy.”

“No one in the 1940s was called Roxy,” Asami said, dragging the forearm of her now reattached metal arm over her brow.

“Y’sure? Roxy Music was founded only, like, thirty years later.” Asami shook her head and rolled up her sleeve, staring down a particularly stiff bolt. “Do the pose,” Korra said, barely intelligible as two crackers were stuffed into her mouth.

Asami rolled her eyes and showed off her bicep.

“ _Phwoar!_ ” Korra said, spraying crumbs.

Asami smiled, lips pursed, and rolled the sleeve back down.

“Raava …” Asami said to the air, then turning to Korra, “she can hear me if I just talk, right?” Korra nodded, mouth too full for even her to talk. “Yup, okay. Raava? Could you check the water pressure here, please?”

There was silence for a few moments before the calm, controlled voice echoed down the corridor, strangely distorted and dissonant.

“ _Water pressure at near-optimal levels._ ”

“Thank you, Raava,” Asami said, wiping her hand on her overalls and taking a pop tart Korra was offering her. “Shower should be working now,” Asami said, clambering over the pipes and standing in front of Korra’s dangling legs.

“We’ll have to be careful that we don’t run out of water,” Korra said as Asami spread Korra’s legs slightly, standing between them and smiling up at her as she rubbed circles into her thighs. Korra smiled, some of her earlier doubts fading away. Some, not all. “I’m not sure Raava had that much in her tank before the crash.”

Asami nodded. “Let’s have a look around the scavenger camp, see if we can’t at least find some drinking water. Now,” she said, grinning, “about that shower?”

Korra’s resolve melted away and she would have ended up sharing the small shower with Asami – they had to be economical with the water, she told herself – but when Asami turned on the shower, nothing happened.

Furious and exhausted, Asami gave the exposed pipework in the shower a kick and strode back to where she had been tearing up the flooring.

Asami carried on working for hours and Korra did her best to help, though she mostly made sure Asami kept eating and drinking.

After Asami had disassembled and reassembled the pumps a second time, she returned from the shower looking pale and wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

“Not working?” Korra asked.

Asami shook her head, defeated. “I don’t have a feel for Raava yet, not like I did for the prison.”

“You okay?”

“Threw up in the sink,” Asami mumbled. “Sorry. Not used to a full stomach, I guess.”

Korra nodded, but didn’t point out that Asami had barely eaten two pop tarts and a bite or two of dried fruit. Hardly a full stomach.

Asami sat down beside Korra wearily, accepting the bottle of water gratefully.

“I know what will cheer you up,” Korra said.

“My mouth tastes like vomit, Korra,” Asami said. “You don’t want that all up in your business.”

Korra rolled her eyes and thumped Asami gently.

She got to her feet and held a bandaged hand out to Asami.

“Forget about the shower for a minute,” she said, almost pleaded. “Trust me, you’ll love this.”

Asami nodded slowly, glaring at the pipes and pumps that had been taunting her all day. “Yeah, okay. I’m putting that kimono back on though!”

Wrapped in Korra’s kimono again, Asami followed her down the dark, cold, dripping corridor that led down the centre of the centrifuge, towards the spirit drive. Thick grey-green vines choked the corridor.

“You sure this is safe?” Asami asked as she stepped warily over a contorted vine burrowing into the floor.

“Yeah, she’s a gentle old thing,” Korra said, smiling as she squirmed over the vine.

“Because,” Asami continued, far from reassured, “they’re turned into bombs for a reason, y’know.”

“She wouldn’t hurt us,” Korra said, running her fingers along a low-hanging tendril.

Asami _hmmphed_ and ran her fingers through her tangled hair.

The bulkheads and airlocks opened for them as they walked and Korra felt better knowing Raava was watching her again, at long last.

Asami hadn’t brought the toolbox she’d been using to fix the shower. It was heavy and more cumbersome than the one she had had in prison, and, as she explained to Korra, it was incredibly unlikely that she’d be able to fix anything in the spirit drive with a couple of spanners and a drill. Korra was secretly relieved – she wanted Asami to have a break from the repairs, not start even more difficult ones.

Korra was glad to see that Asami’s appetite had returned, though she was less happy that Asami had eaten all the crackers. Korra fingered a biscuit in her shirt pocket for a while, debating whether or not to have it all to herself, before she snapped it in half and offered a bit to Asami.

“Did you see that?!” Asami gasped, crumbs filling the air.

“See what?” Korra asked, careful not to waste any of her half of the biscuit.

Asami frowned back down the cylindrical corridor. “Could’ve sworn …” she said quietly.

Korra slipped her bandaged fingers into Asami’s and smiled. “Come on,” she said, dragging Asami down the vine-choked passage.

At the last bulkhead, Korra gripped Asami’s hand tightly as they waited for Raava to open the heavy metal door. After a lot of clunking and grinding, the door lifted and they stepped onto a narrow gantry.

Shafts of golden sunlight blinded Korra for a few moments, and shifting orange and green shapes danced in front of her for a while.

Around them, the enormous and corkscrewing limbs of the spirit vine were encased in a complex, interlocking series of panels, like giant metallic petals suffused with sunlight. The air was hot and heavy like a greenhouse and Korra was soon sweating despite only wearing a shirt.

Like the massive grey-green vines they serviced, an intricate network of pipes and hoses and rods filled the chamber and were buried in the vine’s thick main stem like parasitic creepers. Gantries, catwalks, and scaffolding held the vine in place, or perhaps the vine kept the metalwork in place. Behind, above, below, and around them, the smaller, hungrier tendrils of the vine plunged into Raava’s hull, becoming one with the ancient pumps and pipes.

The remains of an old and long-gone engine caught Asami’s eye and the full extent of her awe, the massive otherworldly powerhouse ignored.

Asami gasped, leaning dangerously over the rail, straining to make out the rusted and scorched remains of something far below, half-hidden behind knots of vines and more modern equipment.

“Look at that! The old engine must have been a real beauty!”

Korra rolled her eyes and gestured to the vine-filled chamber around them. “Asami … the spirit drive?”

Asami’s feet returned to the gantry and she looked up at the thick viscera of vines suspended around them. Korra had hoped Asami would be in awe, or at least mildly impressed and distracted from the broken shower, but instead she began assessing and dissecting the damage. Korra smiled wearily. She should have just let Asami look at the remains of the old engine.

“Hmm, yeah. Okay.” Asami gnawed her lip and tapped a forefinger against her chin. “Right, the damage doesn’t look too bad, a few of the control rods and pipes and stuff have been knocked loose. But the shutters were only half-open when Raava crashed so the vines haven’t died from lack of sunlight or been dried out by the suns. Which is obviously very good. The damage looks fixable from here, but there may be something wrong deeper inside Raava. We’ll have to see. I mean … Raava, can you fire up the spirit drive?”

There was a dull humming followed by silence. Raava’s disembodied voice echoed through the chamber. “ _Spirit drive offline._ ”

“See? So, either Raava’s sensors are messed up, which they probably are, or there’s something else wrong, which there probably is.” Asami sighed and sucked her lip as Korra leant against the railing. The shafts of sunlight were going straight through Asami’s silk kimono, and Korra could see Asami’s perfectly silhouetted body beneath it.

“I’ll work on it for a couple of days, but I don’t want to waste any time. I’d much rather get the auxiliaries up and running, get the hell off this sandy hell-hole, and see what I can do with the spirit drive later.”

The tops of Asami’s silhouetted thighs were touching and as she half turned towards her, Korra caught a glimpse through the silk flowing over Asami’s chest.

“Sounds good to me,” Korra said, edging closer to Asami. “I’ll help if I can.” Asami smiled and slipped an arm around her. The smell of her unwashed hair mingled with the hot greenhouse and wet foliage smell of the spirit drive.

The diaphanous silk kimono was warm and soft beneath her fingers. Asami’s skin beneath the silk was warmer and softer. Asami smiled as Korra’s lips brushed hers and let herself be pushed against the railing. Korra pulled the kimono open another inch, the kisses sunk lower, and opened it another inch.

Asami whispered Korra’s name.

Korra took her hand out of Asami’s kimono as though something had bitten her, backed away a few steps and wiped her mouth on the back of a bandaged hand.

“Sorry,” Korra said. “I’m … I can’t do this.”

She turned and ran back down the gantry, ignoring the tears stinging in her eyes and Asami shouting her name.

*

Asami tightened a bolt on the control rod and breathed a sigh of relief. She dragged her oil and sap stained forearm over her sweaty forehead, glad that she had fixed the shower yesterday and could enjoy her first proper shower tonight.

She had been working in the spirit drive for almost a week. Progress was slow and tiring. She would sometimes spend hours just clambering from vine to vine and edging slowly along tendrils thicker than her torso that swayed dangerously like little dandelions in the wind. She wasn’t sure she trusted the enormous otherworldly plant. She trusted metal and plastic and machinery. The spirit vine wasn’t just alive, it was alien.

She had discovered early on in her repairs that the main energy siphon had been torn loose in the crash, and after a lot of sweating and swearing, she had managed to reconnect it to the main trunk of the vine. She had just finished rebuilding and digging the last control rod into the tough leathery hide of the vine. The recalibration would have to come later once Raava’s systems were up and running properly though. Asami knew she may have to redo all of her hard work.

Faintly, a velvet-voiced singer begged a girl called Rosalita to come out tonight, the tinny and distant music echoing down all the way down from Raava’s flight deck. Asami sat on the vine, listening to the ethereal music for a while.

Asami had barely seen Korra since she had run out of the spirit drive almost a week ago. Asami had followed her back into the centrifuge, but hadn’t found her in the lounge or any of the bedrooms. Alone, she had wandered back to the spirit drive with the toolbox and, though she had intended on making a start on the repairs, she had sat on the edge of a gantry, legs dangling over the vine-choked void, watching the shafts of sunlight shift slowly through the vast chamber as the suns turned outside.

She had slept alone that night in Korra’s bed.

The next morning, she had heard faint, echoing music coming from the cockpit. She’d climbed halfway up there before stopping and going back down to the centrifuge. That afternoon, she had gone up to the cockpit, only to find it empty, the tape player still on and whirring quietly.

Twice that week, Asami had woken up in the middle of the night to find Korra curled up beside her in the bed only to wake up alone again. Two days ago, she had woken up to find a huge sandy barrel of water in the lounge and a pile of tools she thought she recognised from the scavenger encampment. This morning, after a sleepless night, Asami had staggered into the kitchen to find the fridge and cupboards stuffed with freeze-dried, vacuum-sealed, and canned food.

The distorted and tinny music faded away, only to be replaced by the same singer now serenading Candy, the once-beloved Rosalita clearly long forgotten.

The shafts of sunlight streaming through the half-open shutters were fading rapidly.

Asami scrambled along the vine towards the nearest gantry. Her sunburn was starting to heal. She’d found a tube of lotion in the shower room – or perhaps Korra had found it and left it for her. Now, the main thing plaguing her was the mechanical arm. Something inside it had been damaged by the pulse weapon she had cobbled together and now it was next to useless. In fact, she had done most of the repairs in the spirit drive one handed. She would build a new one, she decided. A new life, a new arm.

She stood on the gantry, looking down at the vines and machinery below her as the sprinkles sputtered erratically around her. The cool mist that drifted up and washed over her face was a pleasant relief after all day working in the hot and humid chamber.

Looking down at the glistening vines and machinery, Asami felt a little queasy. She hoped it was vertigo. She’d been sick almost every day since she’d woken up from her hibernation almost a week ago.

Abruptly, the distant music stopped and silence fell over the ship.

Asami thought she understood why Korra needed space, but she couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt.

*

Korra sat on the threshold of Raava’s open cargo bay. A strong wind had swept away much of the sand and the massive doors had been able to open fairly easily. She had the headphones of the little tape player on and ‘Cry, Cry, Cry’ was playing. Korra was barely listening to the discordantly upbeat song.

Korra fingered the storm-clouded shard of gold and black glass she had picked up out of the sand when she and Asami had crashed the stolen shuttle. In the dying sunlight streaming through the gaping cargo bay doors, the glass shone.

Turning it over and over in her bandaged hands – bandages that desperately needed changing – Korra watched the patterns of light in the fused and melted sand shift and dance fitfully.

Korra barely noticed when the glass slipped through her fingers and bounced down the ramp into the desert sand, ringing on the metal like a bell. Korra stayed sitting, fingers still now and gazing blankly out over the sand.

She felt like shit. Aang was gone, something she may never get used to, and now she couldn’t even bring herself to talk to Asami. Everything had felt so right when she’d opened the kimono in the spirit drive over a week ago. She couldn’t understand why she couldn’t go through with it. And until she had worked through it, she wasn’t going to risk hurting Asami.

Sick of the music, Korra threw the headphones and tape player aside.

Perhaps she was afraid that now they were free, Asami would leave her. Korra folded her arms over her knees and rested her chin on a forearm. That seemed like a rather obvious explanation. She couldn’t be entirely sure that it wasn’t true though.

Korra frowned and watched the sun sinking slowly lower and lower. The vast sands were almost white in the dying light and stretched off to the horizon like a frozen ocean. Korra realised that, despite the cruel guards and rampant decay and inmates with grudges and knives, she had felt strangely secure in the prison, in the tiny cell she had shared with Asami.

Out here, she felt so horribly exposed.

She had almost died here, she thought, the memory of Zaheer’s sword slicing through her reverie. She closed her eyes and listened to her breathing.

Was it the desert that was doing this, then? Or had the prison done something to her?

Was she afraid to let herself get too close to Asami? Losing Aang’s recordings had broken her heart. She knew losing Asami too would destroy her. Was that it?

Korra sighed and pulled out a cigarette from her pocket. She had found a barely started pack in the cockpit last night. She lit it and watched the smoke billow out of her mouth and catch the dying sunlight.

She climbed stiffly to her feet – sleepless nights in the pilot’s seat was playing havoc with her back – and walked slowly down the ramp. Her bare feet sunk into the sand as she picked the shard of glass up and slipped it into the pocket of her stained drawstring sweatpants.

She finished her cigarette at the foot of the ramp, standing ankle-deep in the warm sand and watching the sun vanish.

“Are you avoiding me?”

Korra didn’t turn around. The sun had sunk below the ridge of rock in pursuit of its brighter twin, plunging the encampment into shadow while the sky was still stained by the sunlight.

“No.”

“Well, it certainly feels like it,” Asami said, not unkindly.

Korra didn’t answer.

“Raava told me you were down here. I fixed the shower a couple of days ago. A filter was clogged with sand.”

Korra didn’t answer.

“I’ve tried to fix the spirit drive. Hasn’t done any good. I’m going to start on the auxiliaries in the morning.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Korra heard Asami take a step forwards. “Look, I … I get that you’re going through something but … if this is about what happened in the spirit drive … I can wait. It’s fine if you’re not ready. We have all the time in the world. Is … is that what this is about?”

Korra threw the cigarette butt aside.

“No.” Wasn’t it?

“Okay. Well …”

Silence.

Korra turned around. Asami was standing at the top of the ramp, the arc lights in the cargo bay behind her framing her in a halo of harsh-white light. She wasn’t wearing her mechanical arm and her hair was untangled and neatly tied back.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Korra admitted, waving her hand vaguely at the desert as though blaming the sand. 

“That’s fine,” Asami said. She took a step down the ramp. “The old Korra and Asami died in that desert. This is a new start and that’s scary, I get that.”

Korra took a step up the ramp.

“Just … you don’t have to avoid me, okay?” Asami said quietly, taking two steps down towards Korra. “If you need space, if you need to think or whatever, that’s fine. I’ll be waiting. Just … don’t disappear on me.”

Korra took half a step up the ramp. She could have almost touched Asami. She was a little scared by how much she really wanted to do that.

Asami turned her back on Korra and began walking back into Raava’s belly.

“I miss you,” she said quietly.

Asami was almost out of earshot when Korra cleared her throat.

“Asami …” she called, “you … you want a shower?”

Asami turned and smiled softly.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Asami washed Korra’s hair as cool water ran over them. Her hair needed cutting again. She would ask Asami to have a go at it later, once the repairs were finished. Korra shivered as the cold water lapped at her skin and Asami’s soapy fingers ran through her hair. Korra turned and caught Asami’s lips in a quick kiss – the first for over a week – remembering fondly their first time in the prison showers, before Kai had interrupted. There was very little he could have interrupt this time – a few kisses, a few longing looks, several accidental and more intentional touches, but Asami had sensed and respected Korra’s reluctance so nothing happened. Nothing happened, but more of Korra’s doubts were washed away, along with the sweat and sand of the desert.

The cold water felt wonderful on Korra’s skin after so long wandering through the desert, but Asami insisted on turning the heat up. Korra couldn’t blame her, after so long forced to use those awful prison showers, Asami deserved a little luxury. Korra couldn’t face the heat though, not after what she’d been through in the desert, and towelled herself off in her room as Asami washed her hair under the steaming, sputtering showerhead.

Asami used an entire bottle of shampoo and just as much conditioner, and the smell of eucalyptus and citrus clung to her for days. By the time Asami had finished in the shower, and padded back into Korra’s room, dripping and her sleek black hair tied in a loose, gleaming knot, Korra was already dressed.

“Sorry I was in there so long,” Asami said, water running down her legs and seeping into the carpets.

“Don’t worry.” Korra brushed imaginary dirt off her blue top and smiled embarrassedly, spreading her arms. Asami smiled and raised an eyebrow as she dripped on Korra’s carpets and furs. “What do you think?” Korra asked. “You’ve only ever seen me in orange and grey, so …”

“Your sleeves aren’t attached to your top,” Asami said, smiling cheekily.

Korra tutted, rolled her eyes. “Put some clothes on. You’re dripping all over my floor.”

Asami shot Korra a cheeky smile as she tiptoed back to the tiny bathroom and Korra felt herself blushing. She felt more at peace with herself a little. The shower had done her good.

Asami came back into the room, wrapped in a towel, and glanced at Korra furtively. Korra noticed the fleeting look. It was still awkward. It probably would be for a while, she realised.

Asami looked down at the floor, to avoid eye contact, Korra thought, but Asami’s face hardened and she looked up at Korra and smiled.  

“We should burn them,” she said, nodding at the pile of orange and grey clothes on the floor where they had been torn off over a week ago.

Korra found an empty oil drum amid the chaos of Raava’s cargo bay and rolled it down the ramp, set it upright in the sand, and stuffed the bundle of clothes inside.

Asami, who in the excitement hadn’t dressed yet and was still wrapped in her towel, splashed something clear and with a pungent chemical smell into the drum. She threw an old soldering iron – she’d found a better one, she assured Korra – into the oil drum and the jumpsuits and shapeless grey underwear went up, slowly, in flames.

Asami leant on Korra as the stunted flames licked weakly at the rim of the barrel and acrid smoke stung their eyes. Korra stared at the flames, smiling and clutching the shard of melted desert-sand glass in her hand so tightly it hurt.

“Hungry?” Korra asked as the flames began to die down.

“Very.”

They waited until the last of the embers had faded away before they kicked the barrel of ash over and headed back up to the lounge.

While Asami put on some clothes, Korra piled the low table high with cracked plates and chipped bowls of dried fruit, canned fruit floating in syrup, salty and anonymous meat she slathered in a spicy and equally anonymous sauce, bars of chocolate, boiled rice and couscous. Korra even found a carton of grape juice she had hidden away years ago in the hope that it would ferment. It had, though it had not become drinkable.

They sat on the floor together, laughing and talking as they ate. Music played on the little tape player – though neither listened – as they talked about everything and nothing. They discussed their plans for the future, deepest fears and darkest secrets. They reminisced about old friends, newer friends, favourite films and favourite music. They joked about the sand and the food, and hours slipped by without either of them noticing.

Asami stole one of Korra’s cigarettes once all the food had been eaten, ignored, or had congealed. Smoke wreathed Asami’s face and Korra smiled. She sat back, legs stretched out in front of her, hands spread on the floor behind her.

“I thought you’d given up,” Korra said, smiling.

“I have,” Asami said, smiling. “I’m just celebrating.”

“What are you celebrating?” Korra asked.

Asami shrugged, smiling as she took a long drag and the end of the cigarette became a glowing pinprick of light in the gloomy room.

Korra closed her eyes and listened to the soft creaking of Raava’s metalwork, slowly contracting as the temperature dropped.

Everything felt so …

She opened her eyes and Asami smiled at her.

… absolutely right.

Korra crawled over to Asami and took the cigarette out of her fingers. Asami did nothing to stop her, she just smiled as smoke drifted out of her nose.

Korra ground the cigarette out on the floor, and kissed Asami.

She felt Asami smile and kiss her back.

Korra knelt beside Asami and kissed her again, running her bandaged fingers through Asami’s hair. She felt Asami’s hand against the small of her back, pulling her closer. A bandaged hand ran up Asami’s stomach until Korra felt her nipples pebbling under the maroon tank top – Korra wondered where Asami had found that, it certainly wasn’t hers or Mako’s. Slowly, Asami sunk backwards until she was lying stretched out on the floor and Korra was almost straddling her.

Clumsily, Asami’s top disappeared. Kisses peppering Asami’s lips, a thumb running down her cheek, Korra’s hand glided along Asami’s stomach and into her trousers. Pulling her lips reluctantly from Asami’s, Korra began the tricky task of unbuttoning Asami’s trousers. Her hands were shaking and the room was dimly lit.

Buttons flying through the air and rolling across the floor, Korra pulled Asami’s trousers down an inch. Asami’s fingers wound into Korra’s hair as Korra left a trail of kisses along a hipbone. The trousers moved another inch, another trail of kisses was left, and so on, until Asami’s trousers had sunk to her ankles and Korra’s kisses had sunk to Asami’s thighs.

Kicking off her trousers, Asami sat up, caught Korra’s mouth in a deep kiss, holding Korra’s chin between her finger and thumb. Korra licked her dry lips and smiled at Asami, who smiled back before raining kisses down Korra’s neck. Korra’s top was pulled up to her sternum and Asami’s trail of kisses had descended all the way down to the soft folds of her stomach, making several detours on the way.

Eyelids fluttering, Korra’s head fell back and she felt Asami’s hand rise gently up her throat to her jaw. A finger traced the outline of her lips and Asami pushed her down to the floor. Korra’s baggy trousers and the fur tied around her waist vanished into the shadows lurking in the corners of the room. She rubbed her legs together, waiting patiently for Asami’s fingers to descend from her jaw, or her lips to descend from her throat. Rapidly losing patience as Asami took her time, Korra’s hands soon found Asami’s hips, then her thighs, then Asami stood up.

Already breathing heavily, Korra sat up, her fingers and lips finding Asami’s body almost instantly in the twilit room. As they manoeuvred themselves onto the narrow sofa that was so much like their prison beds, Korra finally lost her top and underwear, leaving her in only her sleeves and bandages as she flopped heavily onto the lumpy sofa.

As Asami’s tongue and fingers and lips lavished Korra from head to toe, finally finding their target between her legs, Korra couldn’t help thinking that, if this were a movie, her foot would be stretched out and a curled toe would accidentally hit a button on the tape player, and ‘Sea Breezes’ would play as their silhouetted, sweating bodies writhed and rocked and merged. But this wasn’t a movie. The smaller tape player was somewhere in the shadows and the better tape player was up in the cockpit and duct-taped to the control console. And besides, Momo had chewed through all the best glam and prog rock mix tapes decades ago.

So rather than Roxy Music, the only sounds in the lounge as they really, truly made love for the first time was their heavy breathing, whispered nothings, and the loud creaking complaints of the sofa.

Afterwards, as they sat exhausted and naked in the cockpit’s pilot seat – Korra had wanted to watch the stars – Korra ran her hand up and down Asami’s rising and falling, sweat-slick chest. Asami’s hand clasped Korra’s arm firmly to stop her from rolling off the awkwardly small seat. The gentle kisses she placed on Korra’s lips and nose tickled and made her wriggle, which she thought was probably what Asami wanted anyway. The cracked blue leather squeaked and clung to their hot and sweaty skin like a third lover.

The cold air in the cockpit and the gentle whirring of the tape player between songs sent shivers over her naked skin.

“I had a dream like this,” Korra whispered, her hand sinking between Asami’s legs, cupping her vulva almost possessively.

“Mmm?” Asami hummed sleepily, pressing her lips to Korra’s forehead and stroking her arm.

“In the Box. A different song was playing though,” Korra whispered.

The stars shimmered in the dark-pink sky overhead, almost lost in the desert haze that, hours after the suns had set, still lingered in the air. Korra couldn’t wait to be off this planet, to sit like this with Asami for days on end, watching the stars in their true brilliance turning and gleaming in the void.

Korra curled closer against Asami, relishing the warm breath and tickle of lips on her skin.

“I’m never going to leave you,” Korra whispered, glancing up at Asami’s face, highlighted by the soft pink glow of the desert below them.

Asami smiled and rested her head against Korra’s.

“You promise?”

“With all my heart,” Korra said, not caring how cheesy she sounded.

“Me too,” Asami said as their noses squished together and their lips met in a deep, slow, starwashed kiss.

They both meant what they’d said, but fate cares little for such fragile things as promises.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter I've had planned for well over a year. The ending of this chapter was pretty much written in my head before Korra and Asami even did the do! And because I'm so excited to finally get this done, I may not have completely proof read it. So, my bad for glaring mistakes, I'll get it checked soon!

Korra and Asami didn’t get dressed again for days. They didn’t do any more repairs for days, they didn’t look for water for days, and after they’d hoarded an unseemly amount of junk food, they didn’t leave Korra’s room for days.

When they did eventually emerge from her bedroom and staggered sleepily to the living room, Korra was sure she knew Asami’s scarred body better than she knew Raava. And she knew Raava better than anyone.

Korra rubbed her eyes and curled up on the sofa that still smelt faintly of their sweat. Asami had gone to check something, though Korra had been too sleep-dazed to hear her. Korra was dozing when Asami reappeared. Smiling and running her hand through her messy hair, Asami kissed Korra’s forehead as she padded over to the sink.

Korra closed her eyes again and breathed deeply as the smell of coffee filled the air.

“Not much water left,” Asami muttered as the kettle rattled and gurgled.

Leaning back against the kitchen counter and one of Korra’s shirts draped loosely over her otherwise naked body, Asami blew the steam from the mug.

“The spirit drive’s tanks will probably still last a while, but …” Asami stifled a yawn. “I’d rather not divert water from them. I’ll start on the auxiliary flight systems today while you look for water, if you want?”

Korra smiled to herself as Asami sipped the scalding coffee carefully. She could certainly get used to seeing Asami in stolen shirts making coffee in the morning.

Korra hadn’t had the strength to even put a shirt on and had instead dragged one of the heavy and sweetly musty blankets off the bed. The wool smelt of home and faintly of Asami.

Korra nodded, realising Asami had asked her something.

“Yeah. Sure, yeah. Sounds good to me,” she yawned.

Korra burrowed deeper into her woollen cocoon.

“You okay?” Asami asked.

“Tired. How can staying in bed for days on end make you so sleepy?”

“Well,” Asami said, sitting down next to Korra, “we didn’t really sleep all that much, did we?”

Korra rolled over and laid her head in Asami’s lap. She smiled as Asami rested the mug of coffee on her head. They hadn’t showered since they’d shut themselves up in her room – or was it now _their_ room? – and Asami smelt wonderfully, intoxicatingly, of sleep and sweat and sex.

Korra touched Asami’s thigh, her flesh warm and soft beneath Korra’s calloused fingers. Her hands had begun to heal nicely and the bandages had been shed one or two nights ago.

Asami shifted under Korra, her knees rubbing together slightly and the stolen shirt falling open.

“Did I tell you my business idea?” Asami asked, sipping her coffee.

“No,” Korra said, smiling.

“Right, well, you know how people can be organ donors?”

“Yeah?”

“And when they die their body bits are used for transplants and stuff?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, what if people could donate their bodies to chefs?” Asami said. Korra looked up at her, eyebrows raised. “They’d have special little organ donor card things,” Asami elaborated, “and when they die all the prime cuts and stuff that doesn’t get used by medical people, like the thigh and cheek or what have you, gets sold to … I’ve been out of the loop for a while, who’re the most popular TV chefs now?”

“The fuck?” Korra laughed, sitting up.

“Well,” Asami said, “I mean, is there anything actually wrong with cannibalism?” Korra opened her mouth to protest. “Consensual cannibalism! Surely it’s the murder and dismemberment that’s morally apprehensible? Is there anything actually wrong with eating people? I don’t think I ever would, and I’m not condoning it at all.”

“Then what are you saying?” Korra laughed.

Asami grinned. “Just that there’s probably a niche in the market for ethically sourced long pig.”

Korra shook her head and sighed, hiding a smile.

“You wouldn’t eat someone then?” Asami asked as Korra laid her head back down in Asami’s lap.

“Depends who,” Korra said, kissing Asami’s thigh. “I’d definitely eat you.”

Asami chuckled.

“How desperate are we for the water?” Korra asked, her velvet kisses wandering up and between Asami’s thighs.

Asami cleared her throat.

“Well … if we don’t shower … we could probably last a day or two on what’s left in that barrel you found and energy drinks you’ve got hidden around the place. The spirit drive’s okay for a while.”

“So we don’t need it right now?” Korra asked, her breath hot between Asami’s legs.

Korra heard Asami’s breath rattle slightly in her throat.

“No.”

“Good. Have you finished your coffee?” Korra asked as her hand followed stretchmarks that lightninged up Asami’s inner thigh.

Asami gulped the last of the coffee down so quickly she almost choked.

“Yup,” she spluttered as she let the mug drop to the floor.

“Good,” Korra said as she enveloped Asami in the blanket, straddled her, and slipped the shirt off her shoulders.

Hips rocking gently back and forth over Asami’s, Korra’s lips and fingers sunk from Asami’s neck to her chest, where her lips stopped and her fingers continued the descent. Korra grinned as Asami’s strong hand slipped down from her back and pulled her closer. Asami’s hand sunk lower and lower until they found the hot wetness between her legs. Korra came almost instantly, an arm around Asami’s shoulders, pulling her closer with each heavy, sleepy breath.

The smell of Asami, the taste and the heat of her, intoxicated Korra.

The blanket fell away, tangling around their hips, and the cool air prickled Korra’s still bed-warm skin and the soft kisses Asami was painting down her sternum. Brushing the blanket clumsily to the floor, Korra pulled Asami down onto the sofa. Their bodies pressing tightly together, every slow, sleepy movement sent a wave through Korra and she buried her face in Asami’s neck.

After their lazy, sleepy sex, Asami lay sprawled and dozing on the sofa. Korra kissed her forehead, swept the hair out of her eyes, and tiptoed back to their – definitely _their_ – room. She pulled on the loosest clothes she could find on her floor – it still felt strangely wrong to be getting dressed – and brushed her teeth, grinning at the reflection in the bathroom mirror like a cat who’d got, not only the cream, but also the milkman’s wife.

Reluctant to wash the smell of Asami off her skin, Korra had just a quick wet-wipe shower which she justified to herself as a wise water-saving practice. Still smelling pleasantly of Asami but not so offensive as to be kicked off public transport, she began the long climb up to the cockpit.

The cockpit was awash with sunlight streaming through the half-closed shutters. Korra blinked and rubbed the glow from behind her eyes as she eased herself into the pilot’s seat. She leant back into the warm leather and stretched her feet out on the control panels. She turned the tape player on with a toe and the last few seconds of a Police song played. She rewound back to the beginning but, distracted by one of the bobbleheads glued to the consoles, she didn’t press play again.

“You awake, Raava?” Korra asked, flicking the gaudy toy and watching it wobble.

The faint hum suffusing the cockpit fluctuated slightly at the edge of Korra’s hearing and a wash of nostalgia swept over her.

“ _In some sense of the word, yes,_ ” Raava replied in her cool, detached voice.

“I’d have brought a coffee up for you, if I’d known,” Korra said smiling. “How are things looking, babe?”

“ _Please be more specific with your query._ ”

Korra rolled her eyes. “How are you?”

“ _Vital systems are still far below optimal levels._ ”

“Asami do any good with the spirit drive?”

 _“Connection to the sprit drive remains impossible. The cause of the sprit drive malfunction cannot be determined at this time and all attempts at self-repair have failed._ ”

“Asami’s going to fix the auxiliaries today. You think we’ll be able to manage with just them?”

“ _Take off and sustained interplanetary flight are calculated to be possible if repairs are successful. Interstellar flight will not be possible._ ”

“We can work with that.”

“ _It is likely that_ _manual flight will be necessary._ ”

“That’s fine. I’ve missed flying you anyway.” Korra ran a finger over the closest joystick, the worn orange plastic of the grip tacky and almost flesh-like to the touch. “Could I contact the prison?”

“ _Communication systems are non-operational and all attempts to connect to The Network have failed._ ”

Korra sighed.

“Okay. Can you keep trying, babe?”

Korra thought about asking Raava how hot it was outside, but decided against it. If she knew, she would have never gone out, water or no water.

On her way down into the cavernous hold, Korra ran her hands over every railing, vent, and pipe, each one cold and slick to the touch with oily condensation. It was unbelievably good to be home. She had to keep touching everything to remind herself she wasn’t dreaming. The past few days lost in blankets and Asami, she had done the same thing: running curious fingers over every curve, muscle, and bone, proving to herself that the woman lying next to her wasn’t something sculpted from dream’s sands.

Korra took the long way down to the floor of the cargo bay far beneath her, illuminated by the flickering arc lights and awash with desert sand buffeted by the wind. Half of the junk in the hold had been there for longer than Korra had been alive. Massive airtight crates and shipping containers, any trace of identification removed and obscured, sat alongside industrial fridges and salvaged spare parts, many of which had rusted away into enigmatic sculptures. One of the gantries had come loose in the crash and was lying in pieces scattered over the floor, so Korra had to shimmy down a few feet of piping, hop onto a vent that groaned beneath her weight, and clamber down a huge, rusty chain onto one of the big containers.

Stretching, Korra wished she hadn’t burnt her prison boots. Her own boots had been taken when she was stripped upon her arrival at the prison. She would have to brave the desert sands barefooted. Having lost track of time the last few days, she had no idea how hot it would be outside and, as she leapt from massive container to massive container, she hoped at least one of the scavengers had had boots in her size.

As the cargo bay doors swung open, Korra swore under her breath and shielded her eye behind her hand as sunlight streamed into the hold.

Grumbling, Korra jumped down from the slowly extending ramp, sinking almost to her knees in the loose, hot sand. Bleached almost white in the noonday sun, the sand was like a mirror, blinding Korra.

Asami, if she could walk yet, was no doubt crawling through damp, dark, oily machinery and loving every moment of it, Korra thought bitterly as she rubbed the searing sunlight out of her eye.

The air was hot and dry, yet heavy and suffocating like a greenhouse. Korra was sweating within seconds and her loose shirt and baggy trousers clung to her skin. There was not a breath of wind, so while the sand kept out of Korra’s eyes and mouth, the air clung to her as earnestly and desperately as the sand.

Korra wandered through the remains of the half-buried camp for over an hour with no luck. A sickly miasma hung in the air making Korra feel sick. The dead scavengers were putrefying in the sun and, Korra thought, even if the vile planet supported any non-worm monster life, not even the most desperate vulture would want to eat them.

Almost a week ago, Korra had dragged home an old oil barrel full of water from a crashed heli-jet that had been converted into a water tanker by the scavengers. The remains of the jet and its precious cargo had been claimed by the desert since then. She found two water barrels in another burnt-out wreck, but the fire had ruptured the metal, letting most of the water escape and poisoning what little remained.

Swearing to herself, Korra gave up her search for water. She was reluctant to return completely empty handed though, and decided to search the camp one more time.

A bird circled overhead, drifting, silent and slow on the thermals.

Exhausted and aching, covered in sand and sweat, Korra hid from the sun for a few minutes under the half-collapsed remains of a tent, the heavy canvas limp and tattered like the broken wing of a storm-dashed seagull. She crawled further under the tattered canvas hoping it would be cooler deeper in its shadows. It wasn’t. In fact, it was almost hotter.

As Korra curled her toes and her fingers into the sand, her hand closed around something rough and almost cool. After brushing the sand away, Korra pulled a bundle of dirty oilcloth rags tied around something hard and slightly curved.

Korra unfolded the rags carefully, afraid that they would disintegrate at her touch. Beneath the rags, glistening and black, was a tooth. Korra recognised it instantly. It was longer than her forearm and it was cold and smooth like stone, and the tip, though worn and chipped, still looked sharp enough to pierce metal and bone like a hot machete through butter. Korra shuddered as she ran a finger down its length to the point, remembering the heat and smell of the worm-shark monstrosity that had tried to eat them and the gaping mouth full of black glass-shard teeth like the one in her hands.

The root of the tooth had been carved into a crude yet strangely beautiful woman, and the entire tooth was etched with intricate, minute patterns and lines of poetry in a dialect that Korra couldn’t understand.

Struggling for breath in the tent, Korra decided to brave the sun again. Getting to her feet after wrapping the tooth in the rags, Korra waded out of the tent, legs stiff and unwilling. As she glared up at the sun for a second, she was surprised to see the circling bird still there, still circling. Straining against the suns, Korra tried to get a better look at the bird. She realised that she hadn’t seen any birds on Si Wong yet. She hadn’t seen any living thigs at all, apart from the giant worm, which she would rather not have seen, and the butterflies, which she wasn’t sure even counted as living.

There was something strangely familiar about the way the bird was moving.

When she realised what it was, her heart sank.

A drone was circling overhead like a bird of prey.

She prayed the bafflers dotted around the camp were still working. But then, she thought, what if the bafflers still working was the problem? She doubted that the scavengers stayed in one place for very long. A few days at most? Perhaps longer if they were looting something like Raava. Moving the camp around meant that the interference the bafflers created didn’t raise any questions. Anyone checking up would assume it was a sandstorm or something interfering with the drone. But how long would it be before someone in a Ba Sing Se control room noticed that this virtual sandstorm hadn’t moved for weeks?

Korra watched, staring at the bleached sky until she couldn’t see the drone anymore. Whether or not it had actually left, or whether the suns were blinding her, Korra had no idea.

The rag-wrapped tooth under her arm, Korra headed back to Raava, suddenly anxious to see, touch, smell Asami again.

Far above Korra’s head, hanging like a spider on a thread from one of Raava’s thrusters, silhouetted against the sun-washed sky, Asami was working. Shielding her eyes against the suns, Korra could see a shower of sparks flowing down the side of Raava’s hull. Korra smiled, forgetting the drone and the heat and the lack of water for a second.

The sparks stopped for a moment and Korra thought she could see Asami waving to her. Korra waved back, smiling wider.

“Dude!” Asami shouted up when Korra had made the long, long climb up to the thrusters. “Pull me up!”

Holding onto a knot of cables for support, Korra looked down at Asami through the open hatch at her feet.

Asami had rigged up a pulley system and was dangling hundreds of feet over the desert on what was, for all intents and purposes, little more than a tyre swing. Korra’s heart in her throat, she could see that Asami’s face was streaked with dirt, engine grease, and oil, and when she pushed the thick goggles up to her forehead, she had a domino mask of relatively clean skin. Tools hung like wind chimes from Asami’s tool belt and smoke from the welding she had just finished still wreathed her.  

Korra pulled Asami up into the thruster’s maintenance area, kissing her dry lips as her head appeared through the hatch. Asami hummed and kissed Korra back, almost falling down the hatch.

“Please tell me you had a safety harness or something,” Korra said, wiping the flecks of grease from Asami’s lips with two fingers.

Asami sucked air in through her teeth guiltily and clambered the rest of the way through the hatch.

“Did you find any water?” Asami asked, threading her fingers through Korra’s hair.

“Don’t change the subject!” Korra snarled, hiding a smile. “You are never doing that kind of thing without a harness or I’m going to duct tape you to the ceiling.”

Asami pouted and tugged gently at Korra’s lip with her teeth.

“I’ve pretty much finished.”

“Good.”

Asami wiped the grease and sweat from her face with her forearm, grinning. “I found something outside,” she said, fishing through the pouches on the tool belt. “I thought you might like it.”

When Asami placed a small, leathery cluster of leaves and sand-covered roots in Korra’s hand, she gasped. There was a pomegranate-red flower in the centre of the tiny, resilient desert plant. It was the first plant Korra had seen on the planet, and its simple beauty took her breath away.

“It was nestled in one of the hull’s many nooks and crannies,” Asami said, her fingers stroking Korra’s cupped hand. “Some rain water or dew had been collecting there and this little bugger took a chance. I figured it probably stood a better chance in here and … well … I wanted to give you something pretty and … it was the first flower I’d seen since we landed.”

Korra swallowed dryly and felt like she was going to cry. She couldn’t have been more emotional if Asami had placed her heart in her hand.

“My present’s far more macabre,” Korra laughed, kicking the rag-wrapped tooth.

“Holy shit!” Asami exclaimed when she’d unwrapped the gleaming shard of obsidian. “This is from that fucking worm shark thing!”

“I found it in the camp,” Korra said, touching the flower’s delicate red petals with a fingertip.

Asami ran her fingers over the engraved surface of the tooth almost lovingly. “This is … just …”

Words failed her.

“Did you find any water?” Asami asked once the tooth was wrapped again and safely in a tool box. Asami tipped a box of screws over the floor and handed it to Korra.

Korra shook her head as she carefully placed the flower in the rusty box. She wondered if the drone had spotted them. She wondered if a platoon were heading their way this very second.

Asami sighed and began unbuckling the heavily laden tool belt.

“Never mind,” she said. “The thrusters should be working better now than they have for centuries. We’ll be out of here before you know it.”

Korra pulled herself closer to Asami. The glimpse of the drone had made her hands shake, and she wanted to feel Asami against her. She wanted to feel safe again.

“Did you manage to patch the hole in Raava’s hull?” she whispered.

“No, but I had a look and it should be fairly easy to do. I’ll need your help though,” she said, nodding to her single hand. “Why is it,” she asked bitterly, “that I can repair spaceships with just one arm but I can’t undo a belt?”

Korra helped Asami unbuckle the belt, and when that had fallen to the floor, dangerously close to the open hatch, she unbuttoned Asami’s dirty jeans and slipped her hand down over her underwear. Grinning, Asami tilted her head back, exposing her throat to Korra’s lips.

When Korra just laid her head against Asami’s chest, just held her, Asami’s grin faded and she put her arm around her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly.

The thrusters’ maintenance area was small and the huge pipes and hoses that took up most of the space seemed to absorb nearly all the sound.

“I saw,” Korra said, “I mean, I think I saw a drone.”

Korra thought she heard Asami swear under her breath.

“Earth Empire?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Korra held Asami closer. “Who else would it be though?”

“Shit.” Korra could almost hear the cogs in Asami’s head whirring. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

“Do you want to plug that hole now?” Korra asked when they were back in the living quarters, making short work of a microwaved pot of noodles.

 “Is that a euphemism?” Asami asked, sucking noodles into her mouth. She grinned, though Korra thought her smile was perhaps slightly half-hearted. The drone was worrying Asami too.

Korra poked her with a chopstick. “Behave.”

The tiny desert plant sat in a sand-filled coffee jar on the table between them, looking incredibly happy in its new home.

Asami gnawed her lip thoughtfully.

Korra chewed her food slowly, watching Asami thinking. Her lips were no longer cracked, and her sunburn had faded to a faint pink. She looked more gorgeous than ever, and more tired too, which somehow added to her effortless aura of beauty. Asami caught her eye and the serious introverted look she’d been sporting melted into a shy yet not at all self-conscious smile that made Korra’s heart ache.

“I think, if the thrusters are up and running now, which I’m pretty sure they are,” Asami said, swiping hair out of her eyes, “we should find a new hiding place to finish the rest of the repairs.”

Korra nodded. “Makes sense.” She finished her lunch and put a hand on Asami’s knee. “You can fly her if you want.”

Asami’s eyes lit up and in an excited blur, she kissed Korra and, leaving her noodles behind, ran out of the living room. Smiling, Korra finished Asami’s lunch and, with her hands in her pockets, sauntered down the cold corridors.

She had already made herself comfortable in the pilot’s seat by the time Korra had climbed up to the cockpit.

Korra leant against the back of the seat and played with Asami’s hair as the shutters clattered back. Asami’s hand was shaking slightly with excitement.

“Have you switched to manual?” Korra asked, flipping one of the switches to Asami’s right that she couldn’t reach.

“Yup, Raava’s given me control.” Asami grinned at Korra like a child at Christmas who has wet itself on Santa’s lap.

“You want me to tell you how everything works?” Korra asked. She was only half-teasing, as Raava’s cockpit was a silicon cacophony of controls and dials and levers and circuits. None of them were labelled properly and only a third of them seemed to have a function anymore. Raava had to be flown with intuition as much as expertise.

Asami looked at Korra in mock patronisation. “Just hold onto something.”

Korra didn’t move, just sucked her lips to fight the grin spreading across her face.

Asami thrust a series of levers forwards, tapped a dial, and pulled a joystick back with great ceremony. She waited for a second, the engines hummed for a moment, and then with a clunk, everything went dead.  

Asami tried again, and still nothing happened.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I was sure the thrusters would work.”

Korra couldn’t reply. Asami turned to Korra, her eyes narrowing at her. Korra couldn’t keep the laughter in any longer and broke down sniggering. Asami sighed wearily and sunk back into the bloodstained, blue leather.

“There’s a kill-switch, isn’t there.”

“Sorry,” Korra said, breathless, “I couldn’t resist.”

Korra reached up to one of the control panels overhead and flicked a series of switches in a complex sequence which, after so many years, she could have done in her sleep. After the kill-switch had been deactivated, the cockpit began to hum with electricity and Asami, despite her scowl, couldn’t help but smile.

Korra leant over the back of the pilot’s seat, draped her arms around Asami’s neck, and kissed her shoulder.

“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered, her nose brushing Asami’s ear.

Asami took a deep breath, and after fiddling with a few switches, pulled back a lever.

There was a swelling hum vibrating through the ship for a second, Korra felt her heart skip and she squeezed Asami, and everything went dead.

Asami sighed. “What is it this time?” she asked, giving Korra a sour look.

“That … that should have worked.” Korra felt her stomach go numb and empty. “Something’s wrong.”

Asami dragged her hand over her eyes.

“Raava?” Korra asked, a hand on Asami’s shoulder. “Are the aux thrusters not working? Are there more repairs they need?”

“ _Auxiliary flight systems require only minor repairs._ ”

Asami leant forwards, her head in her hand.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

Korra ground a knuckle into her eye socket until lights appeared behind her eyelid. She was thinking desperately.

“Raava,” Korra said, trying to calm her breathing, “can you fire up the thrusters?”

There was a pause before Raava answered. “ _Negative._ ”

“And you can’t get the spirit drive to work.” Korra sat down on the edge of the pilot’s seat, and ran her fingers through Asami’s hair and down her back. “And you’ve lost the logs. There’s …” Asami turned and looked at Korra. “There’s something wrong with her, isn’t there?” Korra said, leaning against Asami and slipping into her embrace.

Asami kissed Korra’s forehead. “It’s okay,” she whispered.

Through heavy eyelashes, Korra looked out over the bleached-bone sand below. An anger welled up inside her. It felt like the entire universe was against her – it felt like the woman holding her, kissing her, the woman she couldn’t bring herself to admit her love for, was the only one on her side.

“Can you fix her?” Korra asked as Asami ran her fingers in little circles over Korra’s shoulder.

“Well,” Asami said, “I’m more of a mechanic than a programmer but … I can give it a go.”

Korra looked up at her and smiled, and kissed her, softly but deeply. Asami whined slightly as Korra broke the kiss.

“I ate the rest of your lunch,” Korra said, quietly.

“You utter whore,” Asami said, grinning and kissing her again.

The brightest of the suns had passed their zenith when Korra collapsed on the sofa, an arm draped over her eyes. Asami had found a canister of the orange vacuum sealant that had held their sand-sailer together and Korra had spent the better part of three hours gathering wreckage from the scavengers’ camp, dragging the fragments of burnt and twisted fuselage up through Raava and plugging up the breach in the hull.

It had been heavy work and her body hurt in places she didn’t know existed. Her hands were bleeding and she dragged herself up, shrugged her tattered shirt off, and tore it into shreds that she wound around her hands and forearms.

Asami was still up in the cockpit, she imagined, waist deep in Raava’s circuitry.

“Raava?”

“ _Yes, Korra?_ ”

“Does Asami want a coffee?”

There was silence for a few seconds before Raava, in her cool detached voice answered, “ _Asami would like a coffee. She also implied that she desires sexual intimacy._ ”

Korra laughed even though it hurt. She couldn’t help but picture Raava blushing somewhere deep in her circuits.

Korra and Asami’s clothes were still scattered over the floor and, muscles complaining loudly, Korra staggered to her feet and pulled on the blue shirt and rolled the two sleeves up her arms as the kettle rattled. Waiting for it to boil, Korra stretched back out on the sofa, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

When she woke up, translucent, impossibly thin blue wings fluttered on the edge of Korra’s vision. She reached out a hand slowly, grasping the butterfly gently. When she opened her scarred hand, it was empty.

She frowned and stared at her hand for a few moments.

Korra sat up, still frowning, and swept the hair out of her eyes.

By the time Korra had found Asami, she could feel her blood coursing through her veins like battery acid.

Asami wriggled out of the mess of wires and circuit boards, raising an eyebrow at Korra.

“Did you fall asleep?” Asami asked. “You asked if I wanted coffee like an hour ago. Did you cut your hands?! Are you okay?”

Korra was gasping for breath and her muscles felt like snapped rubber bands.

“You look like you’ve seem a ghost,” Asami said, propping herself up on her elbow.

“Not a ghost,” Korra said breathlessly. She had run all the way up from the centrifuge, barely remembering to breathe. “Butterfly.”

Asami gave her a funny look.

“You got heat stroke?”

“No. Maybe. No. The butterflies in the desert. In the heli-jet and the navigator.”

The funny look got funnier. “Yeah?”

“They’re here! They’re in Raava! In her circuits and her computers!”

“You think so?”

“Maybe, yeah! It makes sense! I think … I think they’re drawn to the spirit drive! To the vines!”

Asami pursed her lips, sucking the inside of her cheeks thoughtfully.

“It makes sense!” Korra said, excitedly, kneeling in front of Asami and grabbing her face, much to her amusement. “They’re clearly not from here. They’re from the spirit world. They came through the portals with the vines and everything else! And they’re … I dunno … homesick? Hungry? They sensed Raava’s spirit drive, which is probably the only one on the planet, and they jumped from machine to machine across the desert until they found Raava.”

“Messing with the navigator and the heli-jet and the scavengers’ other stuff on their way,” Asami said thoughtfully.

“But the spirit drive isn’t working properly. It’s still alive, so it’s enough to keep them here, but it’s not working …”

“… So they’re just hanging around in Raava’s flight computers …”

“… Hibernating! Maybe that’s why Raava can’t communicate with the prison. Or access the logs! Or get the thrusters to work! Because the whole fucking swarm is in her memory banks and shit!”

Asami scrambled to her feet, throwing aside the burnout circuit board she’d been clutching. She spoke quickly, her words tumbling out, barely able to keep up with her racing mind as she squirmed past Korra and tore down the stairs.

“If I hotwire the spirit drive … give it a quick burst of power … doesn’t need to be enough to get us in the air … might be enough to lure the fuckers out!”

“You’re a beautiful genius and I love …” Korra shouted down the stairs, “… _and_ she’s gone.”

Korra was about to follow Asami when she paused, turned back to Raava, and said, “Raava, shutdown and reboot, okay?”

“ _Yes, Korra_.”

If Korra and Asami were right about the butterflies, they were about to perform a virtual exorcism, and Korra couldn’t bear to have Raava be conscious for it.

By the time Korra made it to the spirit drive, Asami was balancing on a vine way above Korra’s head, massive electrical cables draped around her shoulders.

“What have I said about safety harnesses?!” Korra yelled.

Asami flipped her off and began connecting the cables to one of the control rods embedded in the vine.

Korra gripped the railing of the walkway with her bandaged hands and tried to suppress the hope rising in her throat. She couldn’t let herself raise her hopes too high.

“Korra!” Asami yelled. “Pull the lever!”

Korra waited until Asami had clambered down onto the walkway before she pulled the rusted lever in the wall behind her. There was an ear-popping burst of sound and strands of electricity leapt between the control rods Asami had tampered with, and the chamber was cast in a soft purple light that seemed to come from deep inside the vines. The light faded almost as soon as it appeared.

Asami stood beside her, gnawing her thumbnail anxiously.

Korra held her breath, waiting.

Asami touched her arm gently. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I guess it …”

Just as Korra let go her bated breath, they were hit by a tide of electric blue that ripped through them.

Twisting and swarming in the shafts of sunlight, the chamber was so thick with the butterflies that Korra could barely see the spirit vines. In fact, each gnarled branch of the vast and ancient plant was decked with the butterflies and, hidden beneath the thousands upon thousands of flickering wings, the vines seemed to be rippling and shivering.

If they had any substance, the sheer number of tiny wings would have sent a deafening roar tearing through the electric-tasting air. Instead, only a faint humming shivered through Korra’s hands, gripping the railing with white, scabbed knuckles. Whether that faint, almost lyrical vibration was from the butterflies, the vines, or Raava herself, Korra couldn’t tell.

Korra glanced at Asami, her skin awash with a mix of ethereal neon-blue and dusky, filtered sunlight.

Asami’s mouth hung open in awe.

“Holy … shit,” she gasped.

Korra reached out, her fingers almost as heavily bejewelled by wings as the vines, and touched Asami’s hand. A shock of … not electricity … leapt between them and Korra felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Asami turned her hand over and slipped her fingers through Korra’s.

They watched the swarm, hand in bandaged hand, awestruck and silent.

The swarm faded as the sunlight died until only one or two butterflies flitted through the vines as though they were water. Korra’s breath rattled in her throat and she felt as though she would never see anything so beautiful ever again; then she looked at Asami in the half-light and her insides knotted and the butterflies’ beauty faded a fraction.

Asami met her gaze, smiled so warmly Korra melted, and without saying a word, they headed up to the cockpit.

The gold-tinged sunset streamed in through the sand-dusted windows and Korra eased into the pilot’s seat.

“Raava?” Asami asked. “You okay? I didn’t kill you, did I?”

“ _Reboot successful. Communication systems now online. Auxiliary flight systems functioning at optimal levels. Automatic flight will be possible in three minutes._ ”

“Can you give me manual, Raava?” Korra asked.

“ _Manual flight control engaged._ ”

Korra grinned as the controls sprung into life and the pilot’s seat lurched forwards on its creaking runners. She reached up to the panel of switches and dials above her head, deactivated the kill-switch with a flurry of clicks and twists, and felt the pedals under her feet hum with power. Raava was of a breed of ships, a breed that died out generations ago, that had to be flown with the feet as much as with the hands.

“Can you press that, please?” Korra asked Asami, barely looking up from the controls.

Asami hesitated. “Is this another kill-switch thing?”

Korra laughed. “No. Better.”

Asami pressed play on the tape player. It clicked and whirred softly, almost drowned out by the growing roar of the engines. The music began with drums and guitars, a discordant sound like someone sitting on a piano, and a chuckle crackled over the speakers that both Korra and Asami couldn’t help but echo. Korra hummed along to the music, smiling so widely that it was impossible to believe she would ever stop. Tapping a finger in time to the music, Korra began to sing softly as she fiddled with the controls around and above her.

“Roxanne!” she sang in the scratchy, crooning voice she reserved for serenading Asami. “You don’t have to put on the red light. Those days are over. You don’t have to sell your body to the night!”

She looked up at Asami as she sang, and smiled even more as Asami rolled her eyes and turned up the volume on the already straining tape player.

Asami couldn’t help laughing and joined in with “You don’t have to wear that dress tonight …”

Something far below them clunked and Korra missed the rest of the verse readjusting the delicate instruments.

Like a leaf on the wind, Korra thought, slowing her breathing and remembering Tenzin’s deep reverberating voice, as she felt Raava begin, slowly, to rise out of the sand.

She worked the joysticks and pedals carefully, easing Raava up into the air. She could feel the engines’ rumbling and groaning vibrating up and down her spine, almost mimicking the drums blaring through the ancient speakers.

Asami braced herself against the pilot’s seat as Raava shivered and jolted out of the cloud of sand whirling around her and hung for a moment, motionless and still, the desert stretched out below them.

Leaning against the control panels, Asami gazed down at the shrinking, dusk-coloured desert, with what looked like tears in her eyes.

“We’re really doing it,” Asami said over the music.

Korra pulled the joysticks back as the music reached its crescendo, the thunder of Raava’s engines reaching an almost musical swell that seemed to Korra to fit the music perfectly. Asami placed her hand over Korra’s on a joystick, threading her fingers between Korra’s. Tears of joy and suffocating love in her own eyes, Korra grinned up at Asami as Raava tore through the thinning air and the darkening sky with a stomach-turning lurch and a thundering roar, leaving Si Wong far behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, because I've been dying to say this: 
> 
> SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY ...


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been almost five months since I last posted a chapter. That isn't an apology, just a fact. I've been trying to juggle work and other writing projects, but I have been dying to get back to this. 
> 
> This is just a short chapter to say: 'I'm not dead. I'm still writing. Expect more soon(ish).'

Korra braced herself as Raava docked. The ancient ship complained loudly as magnetic clamps locked on to her pockmarked hull and Korra felt her teeth rattle in her head. Cautiously, Korra unwound her fingers from the controls. She cracked her knuckles and rubbed her tired eyes. Raava’s flight computers, despite Asami’s best efforts, were still rather temperamental and Korra had made the thirty-hour approach to the station on manual. She tried to calm her shaking hands and cursed herself for having that sixth coffee, and the seventh, though the eighth had been absolutely necessary.

Sinking stiffly into the cracked blue leather, Korra let her eyes close. Intricate patterns swam through the darkness, phantom projections of the station’s myriad lights, Raava’s flickering controls, and the canvas of stars she had been staring at for hours.

Asami’s voice crackled over the intercom, dancing like static over Korra’s skin.

_“Shit! The floor just jumped up and hit me in the face!”_

Korra stifled a laugh.

“We’re docking,” she explained. “We’re piggy-backing the station’s spin.”

 _“A warning would have been nice! Anyway, as I was saying: it’d start smelling in here pretty quickly._ ”

Barely sleeping and with more coffee coursing through her veins than blood, Asami had been working furiously the past few weeks, desperately trying to salvage Raava’s spirit drive. She hadn’t had much luck so far. There had been a few rumblings and flashes, but nothing even remotely hope-inspiring. So, for the past thirty-odd hours, they had been talking over Raava’s intercom, keeping each other company and occasionally attempting and failing miserably at intercom-sex.

“It wouldn’t smell,” Korra asserted, her eyes opening slowly. She massaged the skin around her blind artificial eye as she began powering down Raava’s flight systems. “Not if we shampooed it.”

Asami scoffed and the distorted sounds of power tools echoed through the cockpit.

Korra sighed and waited, watching the shifting array of lights as the station, and Raava with it, turned slowly.

The station had once been a mining vessel; a strange crab-like ship that would latch on to detritus and drain it of anything worth selling. Shortly before the Hundred Year War, as often happens, the money eventually dried up and the entire enterprise was abandoned.

A lot had changed since then: that mining vessel, gutted and filleted like a fish, had become just one corpse in a graveyard of ships. Korra could make out the shells of enormous tankers, scarred battleships, and the sleek, majestic curves of rotting pleasure cruisers. Each ship was bound to the other by tangled webs of scaffolding, and the docking ships, Korra thought, looked like hapless flies caught by some enormous, metallic spider.

In recent years, the station had become known as Ilion, which seemed rather fitting to Korra: it was a time and war ravaged city of beautiful, gleaming ruins, but ruins all the same.

Due to its being between deserted Si Wong and nowhere, not to mention its unofficial but never contested neutrality, Ilion had become a favourite haunt of smugglers, thrill-seekers, gamblers, and ne’er-do-wells. Casinos, brothels, arenas and bars filled almost every inch and, rumour had it, the station had evaded the attention of those who would shut it down simply because those who would shut it down were all too familiar with it.

“ _There’d be saliva everywhere_ ,” Asami said, stifling a yawn. Korra pictured her in her oil-stained burgundy jeans, vest transparent with sweat, her back arching like a cat’s as she stretched wearily.

“There’s already saliva everywhere,” Korra said grinning. “I have to get the mop out every time we do it. You pervert.”

A drill whirred indignantly over the intercom.

After a few minutes the drill quieted and Asami said in her low voice: “ _I regret ever fucking you in that stupid prison_.”

Korra chuckled and ran her hand through her hair.

“No, you don’t. You can’t even think about my …” Korra couldn’t help but laugh, “… nubile form without …”

“ _Don’t say it_.”

“… drooling.”

Korra thought the power tools would start up again but silence crackled over the intercom.

“Asami?”

“ _Hang on a minute. I’m coming to drool all over you and your stuff_.”

“Hold that thought,” Korra laughed. The communicator had started flashing. “The station’s calling.”

“ _You should tell them you’re an escaped convict with a bounty on your head who kink-shames her friends. Hopefully they’ll arrest you and I’ll have some peace and quiet_.”

Korra called her a bitch and switched off the intercom, still smiling.

The communicator flashed insistently, casting the dark flight deck in a pulsating red glow. Korra pushed herself out of her chair. She had spent so long being weightless in the cabin that her knees buckled under her and Korra had to crawl on her stomach. After staggering to her feet at the back of the cabin, Korra began fishing through a drawer full of playing cards, batteries, and a surprising number of empty bottles swiped from mini-bars across the galaxy. Korra pulled out an old rolodex, blew the dust from it and, her near-atrophied muscles fighting her every step of the way, she staggered back to the controls like a drunken sailor on a storm-tossed deck.

Strapped back into the peeling pilot’s seat, Korra yawned and flicked a switch on the com-unit. A flurry of static erupted as the cabin settled back into star-washed darkness. Korra turned a dial carefully, the static calmed, and a tired, bored voice echoed through the speakers.

“ _This is Ilion Control_ ,” the voice said, the words melting into one uninterested mumble.

“Alright, mate?” Korra said, deliberately echoing the man’s tone.  

The man grunted.

“ _Could be worse. Hey, your camera’s not working._ ”

“We don’t have one. This floating lobster trap has been remodelled so many times, it’s a wonder we even have life-support, let alone a proper com-unit.”

“ _Fair enough. Can I get your registration?_ ”

“Yeah, ‘course. Hang on a sec,” Korra muttered, flicking through the well-thumbed and age-yellowed index cards. “I can never find it when I need it.”

The man laughed nasally but not unpleasantly. “ _Don’t worry. Take your time. I’ve got a right prick in bay four. It’d be a pleasure to keep him waiting_.”

Korra laughed.

“ _You here for business or pleasure?_ ”

Korra sucked her teeth as she rifled through the index cards. Details of scrapped, decommissioned, lost and wrecked ships were scrawled in pencil on each card. Raava didn’t have her own registration number and – even if she had – for obvious reasons, they couldn’t have used it.

“A bit of both,” Korra said. “Got to make repairs, but if I can sneak away from … from my girlfriend, I’ll probably try to have a little fun.”

The man laughed again.

“ _Steer clear of the whorehouse in the old C-Corp tanker_. _And if you do find yourself there, ask for Murasaki. That girl gives a killer shoulder massage. Not kidding._ ”

Korra forced a laugh.

“Will do.”

“ _You found that registration yet?_ ”

Korra tore a card off and held it up to the light. Aang’s writing, barely comprehensible as it was, had faded over the years and Korra was struggling to find a card she could read. This one would do, she hoped.

“Yup, got it.”

“ _Right. Name of ship_.”

Korra peered at the dog-eared card. “The Edda.”

“ _Etta?_ ”

“Edda. As in _The_ _Poetic Edda._ ”

“ _Why didn’t you say so?_ ” he said, voice heavy with sarcasm. “ _Girlfriend name her?_ ”

“Mmm.” Korra leant closer to the windows, hoping the faint starlight would help decipher Aang’s faded scrawl..

“ _Registration number_.”

“L for lunar, W for wrong, H for honour, P for pneumonia, dash, K for knickers, T for tsunami. Then there’s a bunch of numbers. You need those?”

“ _Yup_.”

“Right: twenty, sixty, double zero, dot, one, triple seven.”

The man repeated it back to her then swore.

“ _She’s old! How’s she still flying?_ ”

“Paperclips and rubber bands and crossed fingers.”

The man chuckled and she could hear the sound of typing. Korra yawned again, wondering what had happened to the _The Edda_ (reg: LWHP-KT 206000. 1777) _._ She imagined it had been one of many unknown victims of the Hundred Year War.

“Everything okay?”

“ _Just a second, mate._ ”

Korra watched the gleaming spires of the station as they turned; Raava’s mostly intact array of searchlights cutting through the swirling fog of frozen waste that shrouded the docked ships. The well-thumbed, broken-spined copy of _The Aeneid_ sitting on the control panel caught Korra’s eye. She had grabbed a pile of books at random from her much-neglected bookcase in preparation for her long flight. She had read barely thirty pages of Virgil’s epic, the other four or five books had remained totally untouched. Korra half-considered reading a few pages as she waited but she could not quite summon the strength to pick up the paperback.

After what felt like an eternity, the man answered:

“ _Right, checks out. A couple of outstanding fines from Ba Sing Se but the most recent’s about eighty years old. But that happens when you buy second hand, huh?_ ” Korra agreed. “ _You’ll be docked in about twenty minutes. You need fuel or anything? Repaint? Looks like you’ve got barnacles._ ”

“Dunno. I suppose we could do with a refuel. And we might as well top up the water tanks while we’re here.” Korra said, trying her best to sound indifferent. Their water tanks were so low that every time she and Asami tried to shower, the pipes rattled like a can full of gravel and the warning light on the fuel gauge had been winking at Korra so much during the flight she thought she had stumbled into a lesbian bar. Korra had always found, however, that it was always best to downplay your need. You’re more likely to be loaned a Yuan if you lie and say it’s for the bus than if you tell the truth and admit you’re homeless and starving. “The last place we topped up at laced their water with chlorine or something. It’d be great to fill up with something better.”

“ _No problem. Purge your tanks and I’ll fill you up. No double-entendre intended,_ ” the man said. Then, almost as an afterthought: “ _Welcome to Ilion_.”

The communicator went dead and Korra sighed.

When she’d readied the fuel and water intakes and told Raava to brace herself, she rummaged in her pocket and pulled out the shard of glass she had found after the shuttle crashed on Si Wong. Turning it over and over in her scarred fingers, the glass caught the starlight and sent flecks of light dancing over the controls. She lifted the glass to her lips, relishing the coolness, the smoothness and the roughness of the glass. The longer she held it, the warmer it became as though it had absorbed a part of her and was refracting, radiating it outwards. She’d find some thread, Korra decided, and make it into a pendant for Asami.

“And another thing!”

Korra started out of her skin and managed to slip the glass into her pocket before Asami slipped her oil-smeared arm around Korra’s neck.

“Yeah?”

“What would we do with all the poop?” Asami said, her warm cheek against Korra’s ear.

Korra touched Asami’s arm, running her fingers around her gloved wrist. She barely noticed when the ship lurched violently and the clamps began drawing Raava into the hangar.

“The same thing we do with ours, I suppose,” Korra said.

Asami tutted. “We can’t expect it to sit on the toilet. We’d be scraping poop out of the gratings every day.”

“I bet you I could train it to use the toilet,” Korra said, kissing Asami’s arm.

“Maybe, but you couldn’t get it to flush as well.”

Korra laughed and tilted her head back so that Asami could plant dry, soft kisses on her lips.

Beneath the smears of engine oil, Asami’s skin looked pale, almost sallow in the dim light. Korra blamed it on being stuck in Raava for so long. She prayed it wasn’t anything more serious than that. Now that Korra thought about it, Asami had been struggling to keep food down for a while now. Korra frowned to herself, concerned. Maybe they ought to get a sunbed, she mused.

“Ooh,” Asami whispered, “your lips are cold.” Asami pouted and stroked her thumb down Korra’s cheek.

Korra licked her lips. “And yours taste like rusty coffee.”

“Really? Probably because I hold screws in my mouth.”

Though they were no longer weightless, Asami’s hair drifted like smoke in the air on the edge of Korra’s vision, tickling her skin. The smell of sweat and oil and her old leather jacket were like a fine wine to Korra.

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“I only have one arm and a half arms.”

Asami growled and tugged at Korra’s lip with her teeth. Her calloused hand crept up under Korra’s jaw and, much to Korra’s surprise, another hand slipped down between Korra’s legs. Korra jumped and, if she hadn’t been strapped in, she would have fallen out of her chair.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Asami laughed, waving a primitive mechanical hand at her sheepishly. “I finally got it to work.”

Asami’s mechanical arm had taken a heavy toll during the breakout and the Odyssean trek through the desert. The weapon Asami had grafted to it, not to mention the sand and fire it had been subjected to, had done a lot of damage meaning Asami had been forced to abandon it. She’d done as much work on the spirit drive as was possible with one arm, but much to the horror of the dishwasher and a semi-automated crane in the loading bay, Asami had recently decided to cobble together a temporary replacement.

A few days ago, Korra had stumbled out of her bed, unsurprised that Asami had woken up long before her, but very surprised to find the lounge had been turned into a mechanical abattoir. She had shuffled unsuspectingly into the lounge, rubbing her eyes, and had trodden on what felt like every scrap of frayed wire and gear and circuit board littering the floor around the table Asami was sitting on, cross-legged and red-eyed from lack of sleep.

Korra sighed and glared at Asami, the memory of her bleeding feet still fresh in her mind.

The new arm was bulkier and heavier than the old one; a gnarled and swollen tree compared to the lean, if twisted, sapling Asami had cast aside. The new arm’s two strong, spade-like pincer fingers – pilfered from the loading bay crane – and pneumatic valves meant that the arm creaked and hissed asthmatically with every movement. While the previous arm had been coated, at least for a time, in a silicone casing meant to resemble the flesh that had been burnt away, the new arm was a patchwork of oily polished metal and scored yellow paint streaked with rust. A tangle of loose wires and tubes duct-taped to the skeletal arm – Asami had used spanners bolted in place with wingnuts to build the forearm – were like arteries and gristle in the twilit cockpit. Rather than being simply clamped to her arm as the previous one had been, this arm was bolted onto her shoulder over her empty jacket sleeve and held in place with straps across Asami’s chest and under the opposite shoulder, giving the entire thing a vaguely disturbing, parasitic look. In the weightless parts of the ship, the arm was only awkwardly big, but in the centrifuge, Asami struggled to stand straight under its tremendous weight.

Asami made a suggestive gesture with her two metal fingers and Korra broke down into fits of laughter.

Choking back her laughter and drying her eyes, Korra threaded her fingers into Asami’s mechanical hand and, after pirouetting as best she could in the cramped cockpit, Korra swung them through the broken airlock door.

“Can you hear that?” Asami asked as they trudged down to the centrifuge, occasionally tripping over stray spirit vines.

Korra cocked her head, listening. She thought it was just the rushing of blood in her ears until she recognised it for what it was.

“They’re filling up the water tanks. Fuel too.”

Asami sighed.

“Thank fuck. I’m dying for a shower.”

“I’m dying for you to have a shower too.”

Asami narrowed her eyes at Korra.

“Because I’ll be naked or because I smell?”

Korra shrugged.

“Flip a coin.”

Asami pinched her and scowled through her smile.

“Go get dressed,” she snarled.

Korra looked down at her tank top and motheaten boxers.

“What’s wrong with this?” she asked facetiously, spreading her arms.

Asami rolled her eyes as she swung herself into the lounge.

“There must be something in this rust bucket you can wear that won’t make you look like a total douche. No offense, Raava.”

“ _None taken, Asami._ ”

“Well, what about you?” Korra whined.

“What about me?” Asami said from the rungs leading down to the lounge.

“You’re all dirty and greasy and …”

“And I absolutely rock this look,” Asami said, now in the lounge and voice fading.

Korra groaned and rubbed her tired eyes.

“She does.”

Raava agreed.

After searching through decaying leather trunks in the room that used to be shared by Sokka, Suki, and Toph, Korra found a pale blue shirt and grey woollen waistcoat that just about fit her. She assumed it had belonged to Sokka as the cuffs came down to her knuckles and were stained with paint and what Korra hoped was just soy sauce. Korra rolled the sleeves up past her elbows, showing her tattooed forearm and hiding the stains. She shrugged the waistcoat on, leaving it and the shirt unbuttoned.

Half-hidden under motheaten scarves and ponchos, a stained, gold-framed – and very-likely stolen – mirror stood propped up in a corner of the room. Pulling the scarves aside and running her fingers over the tarnished, shell-like patterning edging the mirror, her breath fogging the cold glass, Korra studied herself closely: her hair had grown past her eyes, sweeping down almost to her full, scarred lips; her pale, mismatched, steel-blue eyes were darkly ringed; the scars etched into her skin – the sword wound in her chest, the knife wound twisting down from her ribs to her navel which Asami’s lips had traced time and time again, the scar tissue marbling her knuckles, and the fine lattice of long-forgotten wounds down her thighs – were pale and startling in the dimly lit cabin; and faint bruises from Asami’s lips patterned the tender flesh around her jaw. Korra smiled; something she hadn’t done while standing before a mirror for a very long time.

As she crossed the corridor to her room in search of jeans and (tolerably) clean underwear, Korra heard Asami swearing from the living room.

In another room, when she’d pulled a pair of too-tight jeans on, Korra found a black silk tie in a box of stolen designer clothing and wrapped it absentmindedly around her fingers. The fabric, though old, was almost fluid to the touch. Standing in her cabin, running her thumb along the edge of the tie, Korra’s eyes glazed over and her mind flooded with sensations and memories, old and new – the fur of Naga’s stomach; her first drunken kiss with Asami; her mother’s long, dark hair; long, hot baths after long, cold days in the snow; and the feel of Asami’s thighs beneath her fingers.

She was knocked out of her reverie by Raava.

“ _Docking has completed._ ”

“Thanks, Raava. That was smoother than I was expecting.” Korra pulled on a pair of worn canvas shoes with soles so thin you could see through them and, after rummaging through the piles of laundry covering her floor, she found the small, almost antique gun she had always had in her boots, and stuck it into the back of her waistband. “You remember when we docked at that station near Kyoshi?” she said as she tied her laces. “I felt like a pebble in a blender after that.”

“ _The landing gear has never been the same since,”_ Raava lamented.

“The landing gear has never been the same since you tried to do that three point landing in a blizzard four years ago.”

Raava went sullenly silent, making Korra laugh.

“Why were you swearing?” Korra asked as she sauntered into the living room, the tight jeans resisting her movements, not unpleasantly.

Asami was standing by the sink, her mechanical arm lying on the counter and shards of a broken coffee mug scattered around her. She was mopping at her tea-drenched top with a damp tea towel.

“My stupid arm,” Asami growled. “It’s great for tearing rusty pipes and shit apart, but I have a lot to do in the fine motor control department.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Korra said, collecting the fragments of the mug.

Asami threw the tea towel into the sink and pulled Korra closer by her undone waistcoat.

“You’re looking dapper,” Asami said, her fingers tracing a line down Korra’s stomach.

Korra squirmed and started doing up her shirt. “Stop. That tickles!”

Asami caught Korra’s wrist gently.

Korra gnawed her lip as Asami fumbled with the bone buttons of the shirt. With every one she did up, Asami placed a kiss higher up Korra’s chest and neck. When she had done up the shirt and the waistcoat, Asami unwound the tie from Korra’s clenched fist and, pulling her closer, slipped the tie around her neck. Just as Korra’s breath had caressed the cold mirror, Asami’s breath tickled Korra’s cheek and sent shivers down her spine.

“This looks weirdly good on you,” Asami said as she tucked the tie into the waistcoat. “Are you not going to wear proper shoes?”

Korra shrugged. “I’m going for a smart-casual look.”

Asami stuck out her bottom lip, thoughtfully.

“I like it.”

“Are you really going to wear that?” Korra asked, gesturing to Asami’s jacket and soiled jeans, half-hoping she could help her take them off.

“Yeah,” Asami said, straightening Korra’s tie and running a finger under her collar. “I left my slinky red dress at the prison.”

“I know you’re joking,” Korra said seriously, “but on the off-chance you aren’t, that was a very, very stupid thing to do.”

“Oh, would have liked to see me in a sexy dress?” Asami teased.

Korra looked at Asami intently.

“Yes.”

“Well, you’ll just have to use your imagination,” Asami said, shrugging off her jacket. “I need a new shirt.”

Korra threw the pieces of the mug into the sink. She gripped the edge of the sink, her scarred knuckles turning bloodless.

“Ready!” Asami shouted from the corridor.

“Hang on!” Korra shouted, reaching for a water-stained glass.

She rummaged through the cupboards, pouring powered egg, Tabasco sauce, salt, and pepper into the glass.

“Where’s the Worcestershire sauce?” Korra shouted?

“The what?” Asami yelled from the corridor.

“The Worcestershire sauce.”

“I don’t think we have any,” Asami said, poking her head into the lounge.

“Why the fuck don’t we have any?” Korra moaned, slamming cupboard doors.

“Why do you want it?”

Korra decided to use ketchup instead, couldn’t find any, and eventually settled for vinegar and soy sauce.

“Are you making one of those … shit what are they called? Desert clams?” Asami asked, curious.

“Prairie oyster,” Korra said as she braced herself, the glass to her lips.

“You’re not hungover, are you?”

“Nope,” Korra said and gulped down the vile concoction. Asami grinned as Korra pulled a face. “But I’m a great believer in preventative medicine,” she gasped.

“We’re not getting wankered!” Asami protested.

“Yes, we are!” Korra said, grinning as the aftertaste began to fade. “We haven’t had a drop of booze on board for days and we still haven’t properly celebrated our …”

“Honeymoon?”

“Escape.”

Asami sighed. “Fine. But you’re paying for the first round and you’re to have me home by eleven. And no hanky panky in the car on the way home.”

“Not even a little?” Korra sulked theatrically.

“Not even a little.”

They grinned wickedly at each other. 

“Race you to the cargo bay!” Asami shouted, already halfway there.

Korra sighed, wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, rinsed out the glass, and sprinted to the ladder.  

Fiddling with the Walkman headphones around her neck, Korra was still imagining Asami in and out of red dresses as they waited for the cargo bay door to open.

“You’re picturing me in a red dress, aren’t you,” Asami laughed.

“Yeah, obviously,” Korra said breathlessly. She had won the race, but barely.

“Tell you what,” Asami whispered, slipping her arm around Korra’s waist, “if I do well enough on the Pai Sho tables, and if there’s a shop carrying Huan Beifong’s latest collection, you won’t have to rely on your imagination anymore.”

“Hey,” Korra said, “you don’t think Huan Beifong’s related to …”

“The fuck is this?!” Asami interrupted, pulling the gun out of Korra’s waistband.

Korra snatched it back.

“A dildo,” Korra said sarcastically. “What does it look like?”

“Why the fuck do you have a gun with you?” Asami snatched it back.

“Give it back,” Korra said, trying to pry the gun out of Asami’s hand.

“Uh-uh.” Asami stifled a laugh and tried to look serious, holding the gun out of Korra’s reach. “Why were you taking this with you?”

Korra clawed at Asami’s jacket, grinding her teeth.

“Just … ugh … in case, you lanky bastard!”

“We don’t need to take a gun with us!” Asami said, sternly.

“Famous last words,” Korra growled.

“Korra, we don’t need a gun. Especially one this stupid! It’s asking for trouble.”

“No, two escaped convicts on the losing side of an intergalactic war waltzing into a place like this _without_ a gun is asking for trouble!”

“You weren’t on any side of the war!”

“Any side that’s not the winning side is the losing side.”

“I … can’t even … What do you mean _A place like this_? You mean this _neutral_ space station?”

“A space station full of bounty hunters and …”

“ _You’re_ a bounty hunter!” Asami said exasperatedly.

“ _Was._ It’s full of bounty hunters and murderers and squatters and criminals!”

“ _We’re_ criminals!”

“And just look at us! Fighting over guns and smoking and having extra-marital sex!”

Asami snorted, trying to hold back her laughter.

“I’m serious,” she said, sounding far from it, though the look in her eyes told Korra she was telling the truth. “We can relax. We’re going into neutral territory!”

“Nowhere is really neutral,” Korra said, finally managing to pull the gun from Asami’s grasp.

“We’re going to an illegal casino in a graveyard of ships! If this isn’t Nowhere, I don’t know where is!”

Korra stuck the gun back into her jeans. “I’m taking it with me. End of story.”

Asami’s protests were drowned out by the deep, rumbling sigh from the airlock door. A green bulb shimmered weakly and Korra pulled the stiff lever that unbolted the sealed door. The door began to open reluctantly, gradually revealing a bustling, halogen-lit hangar full of noise and smoke and sparks. A cloud of sand whirled through the air as a stale, oily wind rushed into Raava’s cargo hold, making Korra’s eyes sting. The gears squealed and the hold’s huge door shuddered to a halt, half open.

Korra shuddered too. Though the prison was almost a faint memory, one obscured by the whirling sandstorms and merciless suns of Si Wong, and though she, Asami and Raava had been wandering freely for weeks, Korra still didn’t feel like she had returned to the real world. She felt as though she had spent the last few weeks in a strangely comfortable liminality. Alone with just Asami and Raava, Korra had been consciously aware of how surreal every day, every second, had felt; as though she had been in a half-waking dream full of spaceships and sand and neon-blue butterflies.

To some extent, she believed that this last step – this last step that would take her from the cocoon of Raava into the bowels of Ilion when the heavy, sand-choked door opened – would, at last, make her escape from the prison complete. There was something terrifying about that. She wasn’t ready for the oppressive noise and stink and flood of people. Surprising herself, she wanted, more than anything, to take Asami’s hand and go back upstairs; back to their quiet, warm bedroom. She was not ready to shed her cocoon.

After a tremendous effort, the cargo bay finally opened, though the door jammed again and Korra and Asami had to jump about three feet to the ground. Korra turned her ankle as she landed and pretended she hadn’t.

Overhead, ships triple the size of Raava were being stripped, scrubbed, or rebuilt. A tangled spider web of tethers and fuel lines and cables stretched from ship to ship and, in amongst the landing gear was a market the likes of which Korra had only ever seen in the bowels of Ba Sing Se.

Ilion’s hangar was a cacophonous hive of activity: thunderous engines vied futilely with yelling fishmongers and hoarse sheepherders tried to make themselves heard over the roar of leaking fuel pumps. Three seconds on ‘dry land’ and Korra and Asami had already found themselves forced into a bartering war for fresh fruit they didn’t want, had two and a half different religions pitched to them by overenthusiastic missionaries, and had two requests for passage aboard Raava in return for, among several things, a possibly-pregnant goat.

Korra breathed it all in deeply: the smoke, the ash, the exhaust fumes, the cooking meat, the exotic perfumes, spilt fuel and animal shit.

All her fears about returning to the real world evaporated. She was back, and she was going to get very, very drunk.


	24. Chapter 24

Korra had gotten very, very drunk.

That was evident to her as soon as she woke up, violently, her face pressed against a cold, metal floor. The hum of dormant machinery vied with her hangover for space in her skull. Stomach lurching like something rising from the depths of the ocean, Korra groaned. The acidic and horribly foreboding taste of vomit scorched her throat, making her eyes water.

“Water,” she croaked, sandpaper tongue stuck to her bone-dry palate.

She didn’t have a clue where – or even when – she was, but she could hear, as if it were taunting her, the incessant murmur of rainwater on Raava’s hull. She had yet to summon the necessary willpower to open her eyes, but she recognised that sound of water on warped metal. She was aboard Raava.

The extent of her possible alcohol-induced brain damage had yet to be determined.

Her skin – well, what little of it she could feel – prickled to the cold air. Every breath she took was a struggle. For a second, Korra felt the rising, inexorable and all too familiar tide of panic in her roiling chest.

She tried to stand up, but couldn’t find her arms or legs.

She wracked her sluggish brains, trying to work out what the fuck she had done to herself last night. Everything was fragmented and nearly incoherent.

*

_“Down it, fresher!” Korra laughs as Asami scowls at her over the rim of a dubiously cleaned shot glass._

_Asami pulls a face and slams the empty glass on the greasy counter. Holding her finger up, signalling a need for silence and concentration, Asami’s face turns almost inside-out. Laughing, Korra slurps the last of the seaweed out of her bowl._

_“Fuck me sideways,” Asami gasps, waving to the tattooed vendor for another drink. “I think I’ve lost my tolerance.”_

_“Well,” Korra muses, poking a wasabi-drenched edamame salad suspiciously, “we have a lot to celebrate.”_

_“To staying alive,” Asami declares, holding an empty glass into the smoke-laden air, scowling at the oblivious vendor._

_“To staying alive,” Korra agrees, tapping Asami’s glass with a chopstick._

_“Have you thought about where we’re going, now?” Asami asks, reaching over the counter for the bottle of tequila she and Korra have already made a hearty effort to drain._

_“After the sushi? Hit the Pai Sho tables?”_

_“Long term, I mean.” Asami pulls the stopper out of the bottle and fills her glass with the grace of an arthritic old woman in threadbare slippers watering her petunias._

_“Oh.” Korra waits until Asami has refilled both their glasses. “The war feels like it’s (Careful, you’re getting it everywhere!) it feels like the war’s fucking everywhere. Even here. There’s … there’s a weird feeling here, now.”_

_“That’s probably the sushi. I’ve never trusted fish off-world.”_

_Korra looks at her dinner accusingly. “Maybe. It is an odd shade of maroon.”_

_“Looks like burgundy to me,” Asami says, chewing a thumbnail._

_“Either way, far from ideal when it comes to tuna.” Korra runs a hand up Asami’s back, under her jacket. “Are you not hungry? The fish is vile but the seaweed and wasabi are fairly decent.”_

_Asami rumbles, sneering her nose at the polystyrene pot of wasabi. “You know … I’ve never had wasabi before.”_

_“Really?” Korra sticks her chopsticks in the pot. “It’s really nice.”_

_“I … honestly, I don’t believe you.” Asami narrows her eyes at Korra. “It tastes like shit, right?”_

_Korra licks the green paste from the tips of her chopsticks and smiles. “It’s great.”_

_Asami is not convinced so, showing the smudge of green on her tongue, Korra leans in and kisses her. It’s several seconds before it hits Asami, and, when it eventually does, it knocks her almost off her oil-drum stool._

_“You’re a bastard, Korra!” Asami growls, pouring another, generous glass of tequila. “You’re a fucking bastard who feeds off other people’s pain and misery. You’re a succubus of pain and … and deception.”_

_Laughing, Korra wipes her eyes. She notices with some perverse amusement that her face is beginning to feel like plastic, numbed by the alcohol._

_Rain drums on the corrugated steel roof of the ramshackle shed posing as a sushi-bar. Falling like flakes of metallic snow, slivers of rust float through the smoky twilight. Far, far overheard, on the edge of her tequila-blurred vision, Korra can just about make out the underbelly of a decrepit, battle-damaged cargo ship, several times the size of Raava. The vast, decaying undercarriage groans under the ship’s weight, wrought iron caryatids weeping cold tears of rust and oil. There is a strange beauty to the steel jungle around her and she swells with something she thinks must be awe. Awe, or bad sushi._

*

Korra managed, with great difficulty, to worm herself out of the peeling, leather embrace of the pilot’s seat in which she must have been draped, face on the floor, legs in the air, for hours. Falling heavily to the floor, something tore in Korra’s shoulder. Moaning through clenched teeth, she tried to sit up but found her arms wouldn’t work.

She was in the cockpit: the groaning of the beloved leather chair made that clear. The tremendous amount of blood roaring in her head told her that Raava was still in Ilion: the space station’s artificial gravity was pulling the blood into her head, making her dizzy.

The pain of torn muscle tissue in her shoulder cut through the swarm of pins-and-needles dancing like static through her arm and, for the first time since she had woken up, face on the floor, Korra felt the familiar bite of metal around her wrists. Wriggling on the floor, careful not to upset her sensitive stomach, Korra tried to sit up and, failing, eventually came to an interesting conclusion: she was handcuffed.

Had she been arrested, last night? Rifling through her recent past, Korra decided the answer to that was: Quite possibly.

Peering through her heavy eyelids, Korra was relieved to find the flight deck was only dimly lit; faint and flickering arc lights somewhere – she assumed – in Ilion’s vast sarcophagus of a hangar were leaking through the dented, twisted shutters. Despite the dim, artificial moonlight, Korra was greeted by an unexpected sight.

“Where did you come from?” she asked the neon-pink strapon that was buckled tightly between her legs.

The soft flesh of her thighs and hips was red and smarting. Far from impressed with the discovery, Korra closed her eyes and waited for the fitful oblivion of sleep or death: whichever happened to come first.

When she found that neither would come anytime soon, Korra tried again to piece together the events of the night.

*

_Korra, wedged by the crowd between a pile of crates full of gutted fish and a woman roasting grey meat over an aggressively burning oil drum, trips over a lemur.  Instinctively, Korra tightens her grasp on Asami’s hand, pulling her down too. The lemur – who looks as though it has been drowned in petrol, hung out to dry on a particularly rainy day, and narrowly escaped being roasted over the nearby oil drum – is, understandably, none too pleased about being trapped under, not only Korra, but Asami as well. It is no surprise, therefore, that Korra – and the lemur, one would imagine – becomes rapidly disillusioned with Ilion._

_Narrowly missing the lemur’s frenzied scratching and spitting, not to mention Asami’s, Korra manages to clamber to her feet, far from gracefully._

_“You’ve had too much to drink!” Asami laughs as Korra almost falls again._

_“Shut up, I’m … It’s because I’ve stopped drinking,” Korra says, voice slurring, scanning the ground for the angry lemur. Or is it an ugly cat? “I’ll be … I’ll be fine when I have another. We need to find a bar.”_

_“I don’t understand the logic of that, at all.”_

_Korra blinks at Asami, trying her best to behave solemnly. “I don’t … I don’t understand what you were saying about … about the blue box.”_

_“Oh, don’t bring up Lynch films when I’ve had this much to drink,” Asami groans, taking Korra by the hand and pulling her away from the smell of fish and burning rubbish. “I’ll never stop.”_

_“No, but seriously, what were you saying about the blue box? I think I was, like, this close to understanding it. It’s what? It’s the life she stole from Death or … No, I’m so confused.” Korra grins at Asami as sparks fall like phosphorous snow from a wrecked ship suspended overhead by a web of chains and scaffolding. “You’re very hot when you talk aggressively about homoerotic subtext in old films.”_

_“Shut up, Korra. I’m still mad at you about the wasabi. And the fucking gun.”_

_“Oh, come on!” Korra moans, pulling the gun out of her jeans. “Nothing happened!”_

_“For fuck’s sake,” Asami hisses, “put that thing away.” Korra rolls her eyes. “Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young lady!”_

_“Oh, my,” Korra laughs. “I love every noun, verb, adjective, adverb, determiner and preposition in that sentence.”_

_“Korra, I’m being serious. How many times have you been shot?” Korra shrugs, aiming the gun at the bedraggled cat. No, look at the ears: it’s definitely a lemur. “How many people have you seen shot? How many people have you shot? Haven’t you ever heard of Chekhov’s gun?”_

_“The Star Trek guy? He worked on the bridge. I don’t think he … I don’t think he really used a gun very often. Is that your point?”_

_“I cannot believe I’ve let you sex me.”_

_“Sex you?”_

_“Chekhov was a writer. He said that if you draw attention to a gun in a story, at some point, that gun has to go off.”_

_“Well, then, don’t draw attention to it. Just … shhh … it’s gone …” Korra slips the gun back into her jeans, making incomprehensible hand gestures._

_“It’s too late! We’ve drawn attention to it!”_

_Korra shrugs vaguely. “Shhh, it’s gone.”_

_“Korra, a gun invites violence. Violence pres… prepicipate …_

_“Ha! You’re drunk too!”_

_“Precipitates!” Asami yells. “Violence precipitates more of the kind.”_

_“But Kirk wasn’t …”_

_“Chekhov.”_

_“… talking about … about gun control. He’s talking about … about being sensible with your limited wordcount.”_

_“Give me the fucking gun.”_

_“Asami, it … I really think we’d be safer with it.”_

_“Give. Me. The. Fucking. Gun.”_

_“You’re a berrigerant drunk.”_

_“Belligerent. Give it to me!”_

_Korra pulls the gun out of her jeans. “Asami, do you want me to get rid of it?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Alright.” Korra removes the magazine from the gun. “Alright. I want you to feel safe.”_

_She tosses the empty gun into the burning oil drum and, one by one, Korra flicks the handful of bullets into the open drain meandering through the crowd._

_“Thank you,” Asami says as Korra drops the empty magazine into a barrel of fish guts._

_“Fuck you, Chekhov,” Korra laughs as they walk away through the bustling dock-side market._

_The kerosene-soaked lemur watches them go with diseased, glassy eyes and the old woman cooking discoloured meat reaches a scarred, rheumatic hand into the fire._

*

“Raava,” Korra groaned, wriggling across the cold, metal floor.

The computer’s quietly melodic voice echoed through the small cockpit. “ _Yes, Korra?_ ”

“Raava, why am I wearing a big, pink strapon?”

“ _Is that a joke?_ ”

“No.”

A pregnant silence filled the cockpit for a few moments; the fading roar of blood in Korra’s ears was all she could hear. Eventually, Raava answered, her tone somehow both sterile and mocking.

“ _The probability computers indicate a correlation between your recent blood-alcohol levels and your current predicament._ ”

“Alright,” Korra sighed. “Don’t gloat.”

“ _What goat, Korra?_ ”

“Gloat. I said: Don’t gloat.” Laughing nasally, Korra pulled herself under the consoles and began tugging at a knot of loose wires with her teeth. “Shit, are you hungover too, Raava?”

“ _You mumbled_.”

“Where’s Asami?”

“ _Downstairs. In the kitchen._ ”

Korra hoped, and simultaneously feared, that Asami was making a big, greasy breakfast.

After tearing a short length of wire from the console with her teeth and working it to the tip of her tongue, Korra spat it onto the floor next to her. Searching for the small piece of wire in the gloom, Korra swore quietly under her breath. Her head was still fuzzy and her throat hurt as she found the wire and began stripping the plastic insulation from it with a thumbnail.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Korra grunted, blocking out the pain in her bruised, skinless wrists as she tried, blindly, to find the handcuffs’ small keyhole.

Dating a cop all those years ago had had its benefits: Korra could pick the locks of most handcuffs with … well, with both hands tied behind her back. Considering the unexpected presence of the strapon, these, she thought, were probably cheap, mass-produced sex-shop handcuffs, and therefore about as complicated as a can of spaghetti hoops.

Being incredibly hungover, perhaps even slightly drunk still, it took Korra an embarrassing three minutes to free herself and she almost broke a thumb in the process. She was rusty.

Throwing the cuffs and twisted wire aside, Korra massaged the feeling back into her chafed wrists. She tugged at the straps around her hips but her hands were still numb and her bleary eyes were straining to see in the dim, halogen twilight. Growling, Korra pulled herself up, pulled the tool box out of its Velcro straps, and tipped its contents over the floor.

Sinking into the cracked blue leather of the pilot’s seat, blunt flathead in her hand, Korra began attacking the buckles with grim-faced determination. The neon-pink phallus watched her mockingly as she chiselled at the leather straps. Losing patience and her already-numb arm growing tired, Korra’s hand slipped and she nicked her thigh. Hot blood ran down her leg, staining the faded regal-blue leather. Looking down at the slow trickle of wine-dark blood, Korra’s skin grew cold and she waited, resignedly, for a wet slice and scrape of metal through flesh and over bone. She waited for the fluid gleam of the sword, thrust through the back of the chair, to appear in front of her. Sand whirled outside, or perhaps the sandstorm was in her head.

Her eyes closed slowly, and Korra took a deep breath. She was in Ilion, not on Si Wong. The wound through her chest was plugged with pale scar tissue. The love of her life was downstairs, possibly making breakfast.

She opened her eyes. The strapon certainly hadn’t been there when Zaheer had skewered her like a fish. She couldn’t help but laugh. She laughed at the pink penis, she laughed at herself, she laughed at Zaheer, and she laughed because it felt good to hear someone laugh, even if it was her.

Flicking the pink penis, Korra chuckled to herself. “There’s a joke somewhere here about ‘cockpits’.”

“ _If you say so,_ ” Raava sighed.

“I dunno. Maybe. I’m too hungover.”

Giving up and reaching for a half-empty flask of day-old coffee behind the control panels, Korra rubbed her tired, sleep-encrusted eyes.

Sipping the cold, gritty coffee, Korra found herself craving a cigarette. The foul coffee, the nagging nicotine craving, the pounding hangover and hoarse throat all felt oddly centring. She felt comforted, somehow, by the fact that all her immediate problems were so … transitory. Insignificant. Ordinary.

“Could you open the shutters in here, please, Raava?” Korra asked, between sips of the rancid coffee.

In answer, the age-and-heat-warped shutters shielding the cockpit shrieked into life, recoiling begrudgingly across the pockmarked, scratched, fingertip-stained glass. Korra winced, hissing through clenched teeth as the cockpit flooded with cold, unrelenting light. Amorphous colours swam in front of her one working eye for a second until, at last, she could just about bear the cold light of artificial day. Through the haze of halogen lights, cold-blue smoke, and tangle of pipes and cables, Korra could glimpse a small spatter of stars, dancing through a poorly patched rupture in the hull of the station.

Forcing herself onto her feet and leaning over the control panels, flask in hand, forehead pressed against the cold, cracked glass, Korra gazed down at the sprawl of people and ships. A city in a bottle. A last foothold of freedom in a shipwreck, drifting.

Korra smiled, sipped her coffee, and thought about cigarettes. Or lack thereof. 

*

_“So, then,” Asami frowns, trying to concentrate. “The guy has to … No, wait. There’s … I forgot the violin. Yeah, so, at the bar, at the beginning, you have to leave the violin and …”_

_“Asami, babe, I …” Korra chews a thumbnail. “I’m completely lost.”_

_“Yeah,” Asami concedes reluctantly, “me too. I think it’s probably best if you’re sober for that grift.”_

_Doowop music plays quietly in the bar as the jukebox casts a soft, neon glow across the floor. Paper lanterns float around the ribs of the gutted shuttle overhead, the metal wreckage is like vulture-picked whale-bone in the faint, warm light. The bar is busy but quiet._

_Korra sighs, empties her glass in a gulp, and smiles at Asami across the damp-stained plyboard table, chin in her hands. Her cheeks are numb and, ten minutes ago, when she had gone for the fifth piss of the night, her face in the water-marked mirror had seemed to have a will of its own, gurning and grinning and frowning at her._

_They are sitting in the cheapest bar they can find, as near as possible to the rotting pleasure cruiser that passes for a casino._

_Asami fingers the greasy ten Yuan note Korra swiped from the sushi bar. It’s not enough to play the Pai Sho tables, but it’s a start._

_“Alright,” Korra says, summoning some tentative semblance of sobriety with a deep breath. “I’ve got an idea. Who in here looks pretty smart but a little drunk. Or a little thick and mostly sober?”_

_Asami looks around the lantern-lit bar. Tacky posters – clearly mass-produced and made in the last twenty years – depicting famous scenes from 1960s Japanese films hang on nearly every available inch of wall. Beneath one of these posters – Annu Mari, viewed through a keyhole as she adjusts a stoking – a furtive bartender in a stained Rick Blaine suit empties the dregs from abandoned glasses in a far from professional manner._

_“Him,” Asami says. “The bartender. He’s smart enough to do that while his boss is flirting with those women over there, and he looks like he’s starting to get a little wobbly.”_

_“Good choice,” Korra says grinning. “Hey! Mate!” she calls across the bar, almost making the bartender choke on his stolen mouthful of warm beer._

_Wiping the froth from his mouth and setting his tray down nearby, the bartender slinks over to their table._

_“Yes?” he asks, a definite smell of sour beer on his breath._

_“You got a Yuan?” Korra asks, sweetly._

_“The juke box only takes cards,” he says, monotonously._

_“No, no. I wanna do a trick!” Korra flashes a quick smile at Asami. “Well, it’s more a bet, really.”_

_Grumbling the bartender fishes through his pockets. Korra smiles. Mako had told her about this trick and the fact that one Yuan is a big deal to this guy is a  good sign, she knows._

_“Don’t worry, you’ll get it back,” Korra promises._

_Reluctantly, the bartender places the worn coin on the table top._

_“Thanks, mate,” Korra says, beaming drunkenly up at him. “Right,” she says, turning back to Asami, aware that the bartender is still watching, pretending not to care about the coin. “Asami. Are you listening?”_

_“Yes,” Asami says, frowning exaggeratedly._

_Korra places the coin inside the empty shot glass._

_“Can you get the coin out without touching the glass or the coin?” Korra knows that Asami can work the trick out in a second, and shakes her head subtly, signalling to her to fail._

_Asami smiles then sinks into an elaborate display of drunken bemusement, then drunken frustration._

_After Asami’s two failed attempts to get the coin out with a straw, the bartender, who has been watching the whole thing and, clearly having something to prove, saunters over, a bottle of soda water in hand. Without saying a word, he fills the shot glass until it overflows, sending the little coin swimming on the table top._

_Korra pretends to be suitably impressed. Asami even manages a gasp. The bartender, trying not to grin like a child, pockets his coin._

_“Shit, dude,” Korra says, “you’re really fucking good at these.”_

_“I work in a bar,” he says, flatly, “I see these stupid games every day.”_

_“I bet I’ve got one you can’t beat,” Korra says._

_The bartender is not interested in the slightest: a group of football fans are leaving, their unfinished drinks sitting invitingly on their table._

_“There’s ten Yuans in it for you,” Asami says after a nudge from Korra._

_That gets his attention._

_Sitting opposite Korra, beside Asami, the bartender cracks his knuckles. “Bring it.”_

_Korra tips the soda out of the shot glass, sets it in front of the bartender and asks him to put the coin beside it on the table. She makes a big show of searching through her pockets, looking for her non-existent credit card. An impatient man, the bartender offers her his own C-Corp card. Korra places it carefully on top of the shot glass._

_“Without touching the card or the coin, get the coin in the glass,” she says._

_Arching his eyebrows and fingers, the bartender thinks for a full minute before picking up the shot glass, letting the card fall off, and setting the glass upside-down over the coin._

_Korra groans and Asami laughs vindictively._

_Beaming, the bartender takes the ten Yuan note and holds it up to the light admiringly._

_“Well done, dude,” Korra says, sulkily._

_“Told you I’d seen every bar trick before,” the bartender laughs. Magnanimously, he smiles and says, “Next round’s on me.”_

_“You are a gentleman and a sportsman,” Korra laughs._

_As the bartender strides over to the bar brandishing the ten Yuan note, a noticeable spring in his step, Korra grabs Asami’s empty sleeve and drags her out of the bar, clutching the C-Corp credit card in her hand._

*

Bare feet slapping softly on the metal floor, Korra staggered through Raava’s belly, clutching the flask of coffee desperately. Unsure of exactly where she was going, Korra wandered aimlessly as though sleepwalking. The distant trickle of condensation sent shivers over her bare skin and she smiled, relishing the feeling. The soft lights built into the curved walls of the rabbit-hole passage were a welcome relief after the harsh light of the docking machinery.

Something caught her foot and Korra tripped, nearly spilling her coffee. Heart racing, Korra looked back along the corridor. A small access panel in the floor was open a crack. Curious, Korra knelt down beside it and, after ensuring her coffee was safe, she pried the panel open.

In the shallow, pipe-filled recess beneath it, Korra found a small knot of vines: blind, green fingers searching for light, space, and water. Stroking the delicate tendrils that had forced the panel open in their frantic quest for light, Korra wondered whether the access panel had in fact been used for smuggling at some point in Raava’s sordid past. Over the years, Korra had stumbled across fake water tanks full of expired medical supplies, detachable fuel pipes that reeked of rotten fruit, hidden panels, doors, and hatches throughout the ship. She had assumed there were no more to be found, until now.

Shuddering, Korra realised the possibility that she didn’t know the ship nearly as well as she had thought.

What else was Raava hiding from her, she wondered. And what was being hidden from Raava?

*

_“In about an hour, maybe two, he’ll have cancelled the card,” Korra tells Asami outside the casino, pressing the card into her hand. “By then, we’ll have a couple thousand Yuans in cash and have doubled his lifesavings. In a few days, when he checks his balance, he’ll be wishing he could thank us!”_

_“Wish me good luck,” Asami says, grinning. Her face is bathed in a cascade of green neon that makes her look like a deep-sea goddess, Korra thinks._

_“No,” Korra says, touching Asami’s glowing cheek. “You don’t need it.”_

_Asami’s lips taste of cheap alcohol and even cheaper sushi. The peppery burn of wasabi still clings to her tongue. Korra bleeds like watercolour into Asami. She’s not even aware that they are kissing: she is simply falling, sinking, into Asami. She loses track of where she ends and Asami begins until their lips separate and Asami waves goodbye._

_Korra sits beside a market stall under a wrecked, graffitied C-Corp shuttle. How she got there, she can’t remember. She doesn’t mind though. The family running the stall, native Kyoshians, Korra thinks, are selling beautifully nutty coffee and Korra is enjoying watching the steady stream of people wandering past._

_She realises, for the first time, just how drunk she really is. The faces weaving past her blur in and out of focus and, on the threshold of sleep, Korra thinks she sees familiar faces drifting by. First loves, friends from prison, long-dead relatives. All of them seem to be strolling the dirt-strewn streets of Ilion tonight._

*

Korra leant against the rusty handrail and gazed around at the tangle of vines filling the chamber. Cold, mercurial light spilled down through the half-open shutters, cutting through the humid, foggy air like razor blades. She sighed and took a deep drag on the stale cigarette she had found in a can of screws which had served as an ashtray spirits-knew-when. Flicking the end of the cigarette against the railing, Korra watched the flurry of sparks and ash fall like sleet through the air. The sparks all melted away within a few seconds, apart from one which continued to glow for almost a minute, until it was swallowed by a jet of steam a few feet below the gantry where Korra stood, naked.

Chewing her lip, Korra wondered what was wrong with the vines. They looked healthy. Healthier than ever, in fact. The Si Wong suns had turned the vines a deep, rich green and Raava’s water tanks had finished being refuelled hours ago. On Si Wong, Asami had managed to jumpstart the vines for a few seconds in order to lure the butterflies out of Raava. So, the vines were alive, and they were still connected to their home dimension. Why could they not convince the alien vines to let the ship along for the ride? It must be a mechanical problem, Korra concluded. Pieces of gutted machinery and power tools were scattered across the gantry. Asami had admitted, Korra remembered, that she was a little out of her depth with the spirit drive. And Raava was a mismatched Frankenstein’s Monster of a ship. No wonder, then, that Asami couldn’t repair the spirit drive.

Korra finished the cigarette and, after grinding it out on the railing, sent the butt arcing through the air.

Perhaps, she thought, perhaps it hadn’t got anything to do with the ship. Perhaps the vines were just stubborn.

Narrowing her eyes suspiciously at the beautifully grotesque knot of vegetation, Korra wondered whether the vines were, in some way, sentient. It was extra-dimensional, after all. She wondered whether it was even a plant. What if it simply resembled a plant. Or was …

Korra decided with a groan that she was far too hungover for this.

Breakfast, then alien-plant conspiracy theories.

But, first, a shower.

Korra wasn’t convinced that, if she were to get down into the centrifuge, she’d have the energy to get into the shower. So, downing the last of the old coffee, Korra flipped the sprinkler override and clambered over the railing. She let herself carefully down onto a twisted bough of the vine a few feet below as the laboured wheezing of the sprinklers got louder and louder.

Handholds in the vine were easy to find; the tough hide was cracked and rutted like weathered sandstone. Wiry tendrils wound through the air, offering extra support. Buddleia saplings and coarse clumps of moss had all, like Korra, found easy purchase along the vines. A cluster of the saplings’ tiny purple flowers disintegrated as Korra pulled herself along the sagging bough of the vine, releasing a cloud of pollen and perfume that made Korra’s eyes water.

Rats, they said, had followed humanity wherever it had gone: New Zealand, Antarctica, even the stars. Wherever humans were, rats were not far away. Buddleia, Korra thought, brushing the crumbling petals off her palm against her thigh, were the rats of the plant world. Carried in boot treads, trapped in greasy machinery, floating in water tanks, awoken by terraforming, thriving in even the most barren and inhospitable surroundings, those intrepid, indomitable little seeds had colonised the universe. She had seen pristine, sterile alien landscapes transformed into seas of lilac flowers and dry, brittle branches in a matter of months. 

Gritting her teeth and tensing every muscle and fibre in her body, Korra stepped under a weak jet of water cascading down from an overhead network of pipes. The water, so cold it punched the breath from her lungs, ran over her skin, leeching the aches and pains from her flesh. The twist of vine under her feet, exposed so often to this lacklustre jet of freezing, rust-laced water, had become covered in a thick carpet of spongey moss, as though it had wanted to shield itself. Korra’s feet sank into the moss, stopping her from slipping. Sodden fingers of moss reached up between toes, tickling her.

Korra’s mouth opened wide, filling quickly with rusty water that soothed her dry throat and ran down her neck. Like a summer thunderstorm’s slow, sun-scented raindrops, Korra thought, heavy with dust and the promise of winter beyond the mountains.

Naked, bathing in mechanical rain, surrounded by an artificial, bottled forest, Korra felt something tug at an unconscious part of her mind; a primeval, ancient part of her soul was awakened, at home, at peace. Surrounded so often by metal and plastic, space and stars, rust and halogen, Korra often longed to be alone in dirt and decay, leaves and wilderness. Body growing slowly used to the bitter cold, Korra smiled. Soon, she promised herself, soon she would return to what was left of Earth.

Korra suddenly realised her teeth were chattering uncontrollably. Despite growing up on a planet more closely resembling a snowball than anything else, Korra could only cope with freeze-your-balls-off coldness for so long. So, teeth still galloping in her skull, she slid off the mossy vine onto a nearby control-rod. Frozen muscles groaning, she pulled herself up onto an overhead maintenance gantry. Getting her breath back in small, affordable instalments, Korra lay gazing up at the gleaming dome of the chamber, rusty water running in glacial rivulets through the meshed gantry.

Whether the water had been warping the leather or whether she had regained some her strength, Korra wasn’t sure, but by the time she sat up, she had managed to wriggle out of the harness. She followed the red lines encircling her waist and thighs with interest if not admiration. The chafed skin stung pleasantly. It was then that she noticed a similar redness across the backs of her thighs, like a blush spreading across her dark skin. Korra raised an eyebrow, bottom lip between her alcohol-roughened teeth, as she touched the soft, sore flesh cautiously. Had she been spanked last night? For the first time since she had woken up on her face, Korra really regretted not remembering much of the night before. Still, she reasoned, Asami would no doubt be more than willing to remind her.

*

_The synthetic silk spills through her fingers like liquid. Korra wipes a tear from her blind eye as she touches the hem of the dress to her cheek._

_“It’s so soft,” she says, to no one in particular._

_Playing the Pai Sho tables, Asami has almost bankrupted the casino and yet she still insists on haggling with the girl with rings in her eyebrows. Korra floats down the row of dresses hanging from the wooden frame of the market stall. She runs her fingers through the dresses as though they’re plumes of coloured smoke. She has never cared much about dresses, but these are beautiful. So beautiful._

_Fuck, she thinks, or perhaps says. “I’m really fucking drunk.”_

_“No kidding,” Asami laughs, a brown-paper wrapped dress under her arm._

_“You finished haggling?”_

_“Yeah.” Asami pats the parcel. “Got her down to five hundred.”_

_“How much we got left,” Korra asks, draping her arms around Asami’s neck. Row upon row of vivid dresses surrounds them in a labyrinth of colour, wafting slightly in the heavy, humid air._

_“More than enough,” Asami says._

_“For what?”_

_“Why ruin the surprise?” Asami grins._

*

Wet footprints following her down the passageways, Korra sauntered through the middle of the centrifuge. The shower and the vines had done her good. She still felt like shit, but that was a definite upgrade from what she had felt like less than an hour ago.

A soft, warm light was leaking up into the corridor from the kitchen below. Korra smiled despite not smelling bacon sizzling or eggs frying.

*

_Her senses are no longer working in tandem. She can only process her surroundings one sense at a time. Korra runs her fingers up Asami’s waist, silk flowing over her knuckles. Touch then gives way to taste. Hot and sweet, Asami on her tongue. Taste surrenders to smell. Sweat. Silk. Sex. Hearing takes over. Blood rushes in her ears. The silent rasp of silk and skin. Her breath, or maybe Asami’s, heavy and heady._

_For a second, Korra is aware that she is on her knees, Asami’s hand knotted in her hair. The hustle and bustle of the market is muffled by her alcohol-dulled senses._

_Asami is wearing the dress, and nothing else._

_Condensation from a docked ship overhead runs down the back of Korra’s neck, making her quiver. Asami echoes the involuntary reaction, making Korra smile. Korra looks up at Asami through a shroud of scarlet silk. A neon sign at the mouth of the alley casts Asami in a luminous shadow._

_Asami gasps, begs Korra not to stop._

*

“Asami?” Korra called out, half-way down the ladder.

There was no answer.

Korra smiled. She had probably managed to struggle into bed last night, then, and was still asleep. Despite the splitting headache and desperate thirst, curling up next to Asami and drifting off to sleep was all she wanted.

By the time she reached the bottom of the ladder, however, sleeping next to Asami fell to second on her list after a huge glass of water. After tossing the strapon onto the coffee table, Korra picked up a lipstick-stained glass from beside the sofa and, humming softly to herself, shuffled to the sink.

Coming around the sofa, Korra dropped the glass and froze, skin burning.

“Asami?” she whispered.

Crouched on the floor beside the sink, Asami looked up at Korra, her eyes raw and sunken.

Korra fell to her knees beside her, hands shaking.

“Asami?”

Sleek, shimmering dress clinging to her sweat-slick skin, Asami wiped a viscid string of bloody saliva from her mouth. The battery-acid reek of bile, the coppery tang of blood and fear, and the scorching stench of stomach acid filling the air, Asami swallowed back her tears. Tangles of black hair clung to her pallidly glistening skin like dying seaweed clinging to rotting flotsam. 

“I … I think I’m dying,” Asami croaked, eyelids seemingly too heavy to keep open.

“Don’t …”

Korra was going to say _Don’t be overdramatic_ until she caught a glimpse of the chunks of bloody gristle and vomit and half-digested sushi spattered around the kitchen sink.

“Fuck,” Korra gasped. “You’ve been … fuck … are those bits of lung by the taps?”

Running her hands through her hair, Asami struggled futilely to hold back panicked tears.

“My … my hair’s falling out,” she whispered hoarsely, unwinding a strand of hair from around her fingers. “I’m puking blood and … my nose keeps bleeding. My breasts hurt. I’ve … I’ve had my first ever period. Korra, I …” Asami’s tears began to flow freely down her hollow cheeks. “I’m falling apart. Unravelling. I’m disintegrating from the inside. I think I’m dying.”

Korra couldn’t bring herself to say anything, and instead simply held Asami’s head to her bare chest.

“It’s okay,” Korra said, lying. “It’s okay.”

“After everything …” Asami sobbed, “… after Kuvira, after losing my dad and my arm … After the prison, after the desert … After all this, something the size of a Yuan is going to kill me.”

“What are you talking about, baby?” Korra stroked her fingertips softly over Asami’s back, her tears and snot hot on her naked skin.

“The EMP in the prison …” Asami coughed. “The EMP …”

Korra knew what Asami was going to say before she could finish, a nauseating rush of déjà vu threatened to swallow her whole as Asami curled up in her arms.

“It’s fucked up my … my hormone implant. My ‘hormone pacemaker’ … it’s killing me.”

Korra held Asami so tightly she thought she could hear her cracking like porcelain.

Asami’s body shook and another mouthful of blood and stomach lining exploded across the peeling linoleum.

“I … fuck.” Korra, panicking, got to her feet, almost fainting. “I’ll get a … I’ll get the bucket from the bathroom.”

Two days ago, the sink in the bathroom had started leaking. For two days, a bucket had caught the drips. Asami had promised to fix the leak, but her new arm and the spirit drive had consumed her focus.

“I’ll get the bucket,” Korra said again, as if to remind herself.

“Please … please don’t go,” Asami whispered but Korra was already at the bathroom door by the time she had summoned the strength to speak.

As the door slid open, hissing on its runners, Korra was hit by a sickly-sweet smell like the day-old coffee she had been drinking.

Hesitantly, as though half-anticipating what she would see, Korra switched the bathroom light on.

Slumped on the toilet seat, a pool of congealing blood that gleamed dully in the softly flickering halogen light, was an old man. Behind him, like a parody of an angel’s halo in an ancient stained-glass window, the shattered tiles were spattered by bloody chunks of meat and skin. The reek of blood and gun smoke stung Korra’s nostrils.

Feeling sick, Korra ran to the sink and retched dryly. Scorched by burning rubbish, her gun, beside a cracked sliver of soap in the sink, stared up at her.

“Fuck you, Chekhov,” Korra groaned, rubbing her tired eyes.

*

_Korra stumbles, her underwear around her ankles almost tripping her up. She can barely see and she’s afraid that, if she were to stop drinking, she might die. There’s a flask of something strong somewhere up in the cockpit, she thinks. Under the pilot’s seat, maybe?_

_Kicking her underwear off, the floor rocks under her feet as though Raava is at sea,_

_Asami’s red dress clings to her body like cellophane. The strap slips off her burned shoulder and Korra can’t help but think that the scar tissue seems almost to be unfurling, spreading, blooming like a wilting rose. Korra calls out to her and the shard of flame-forged desert glass on the chain around Asami’s neck gleams as she turns._

_“Come here,” Asami says._

_Asami looks strangely pale, sallow, Korra thinks. The flesh around her eyes has grown hollow and purple over the last few days. Why hasn’t she noticed before now, she wonders._

_Asami is holding something – something pink and ridiculous. Korra can’t quite process what it is but, somehow, she knows that it’s absolutely fucking hilarious. She giggles and hiccups uncontrollably as Asami kneels in front of her. Korra’s head rolls backwards and she finds herself staring into a flickering light; small, tattered moths flutter erratically through the air around the light. Korra wonders whether she can decode the pattern of their flight. She wonders if the absolute randomness of the moths’ flight_ is _a pattern. It’s a paradox: the complete absence of meaning to their fluttering and flittering is the pattern and meaning._

_She wonders if the moths know that they’re in space._

_The soft bite of tightening leather straps around her hips and thighs tugs her gently out of her distracted reverie._

_Korra smiles down between her legs admiringly and sways her hips experimentally._

_“You … Oh, shit.” Korra’s eyes close heavily as she speaks. Jerking herself awake, Korra laughs. “You ever used one of … one of these?”_

_“I …” Asami gets clumsily to her feet after several failed attempts. “I don’t think so. You still wanna … give it a try?”_

_Korra nods groggily, the slight movement of her head making her stomach lurch._

_Half-aware that neither of them will remember any of this, Korra kisses Asami’s shoulder and whispers, “’Sami, I … Shut up.”_

_“I didn’t say anything,” Asami whispers, conspiratorially, arm draped around Korra’s neck._

_“Look.” Korra places a finger on Asami’s lips, or as near as she can manage. “I haven’t told you I love you. But … actually … I did say it already. In the cell. In … in Chapter Seven. Or … Maybe Eight. Sorry, I get meta when I’m wankered like this. You told me to lie. But … I lied. I lied about lying. I love you. I fucking love you, okay?”_

_Asami smiles._

_“Okay.”_

_“Okay,” Korra burps. “Now, you ready to get … well and truly … spit roasted?”_

_“Absolutely.” Asami bites her lip thoughtfully. “Gotta … gotta pee first. Maybe throw up, too. Gimme a sec.”_

*

At first, Korra thought his face had been so obscured by blood that it had rendered him unrecognisable. It was only upon closer, reluctant inspection that she saw the horrifying reality. The man’s face was half-missing: his nose, lips and eyelids were gone, and so much of his right cheek had been lacerated or masticated that his face was twisted into a rotting, reptilian grin.

Someone had tried to skin him.

Whether they had given up, been interrupted, or had found their conscience louder than expected, Korra couldn’t tell. Enough of the old man’s wrinkled, contorted, exsanguinated face was left, however, for Korra to realise whose corpse was slumped on the toilet. A wave of cold sweat drenched her and she felt her stomach turn inside-out. For a second, she lost consciousness.

“No,” Korra whispered, her voice echoing in her ears as though she were underwater. “No, he’s … it can’t be him …”

The mouthful of vomit Korra had been holding down since she woke up finally forced its way out.

Room spinning, Korra fell to her knees.

In his lap, clasped as though in prayer, the old man’s hands were swollen by arthritis. The man’s hands were what truly horrified her, what eradicated any hope that she might be wrong. The paper-thin skin, laced with scars, was tattooed with monstrous insects writhing around his fingers.

Staggering to her feet, slipping in blood and vomit, Korra clung to the mildewed shower curtain. Somewhere on the edge of her overloading brain, Korra heard the sound of plastic snapping and vinyl tearing. The blood-smeared floor rushed up to meet her and, much to Korra’s relief, everything went black before impact.

Waking up in what felt like less than a minute, the torn curtain like a shroud over her, Korra wondered whether the last five or six minutes had been a dream. One look at Asami’s ashen, hollow face told her that she was out of luck.

“Korra,” Asami croaked. “Did you hit your head?”

Korra shook her head, clinging to Asami’s shaking arm.

“Slipped,” she managed to whisper, the sting of bile rising in her throat.

“Korra …”

“Mmm.”

“There’s a dead guy on the toilet.”

“Mmm.”

“Did you kill him?” Asami asked, cradling Korra’s head against her chest. With every shallow breath, Korra could hear the wet sound of blood and bile in Asami’s chest.

“I don’t think so.” Korra glared at the old man. “I thought he was already dead.”

“Well … he sure as shit is, now. Who was he?”

Wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, Korra spat the taste of her own stomach acid onto the bathroom floor, and stared at the old man as though he had been murdered in her bathroom just to annoy her.

“A complete bastard,” she snarled. “A complete fucking bastard.”

Like an all-seeing third eye in the centre of his forehead, the gunshot wound stared back at Korra, emptily and accusingly, as chunks of skull and brain ran down what remained of Koh’s face like tears.

**WHO KILLED THE FACE STEALER?**

PART I


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still alive (more or less).

Korra was standing in the bathroom, half-naked. The light overhead flickered erratically. Like a mildewed shroud, the torn shower curtain had been draped over the lead-lobotomised corpse. Korra felt sick; the heady reek of iron clung to the air. She took a gulp of the rum she didn’t realise she had been holding, grunted as it threatened to upend her stomach, and gave the carcass on the toilet a hearty kick in the balls.

“You’re a fucking bastard,” she growled, struggling to restore her balance as the corpse fell against the sink. The shroud fell away, revealing the twisted, bloody grimace.

His blank, empty eyes stared back at her, mockingly.

“Why couldn’t you have left us alone?” she snarled, whether to the corpse or the universe, she wasn’t sure.

There was no answer from either the corpse or the universe.

Korra’s voice breaking, she whispered: “Why couldn’t we be happy?”

The empty, bloodshot third eye bored into Korra’s soul, relentless and cold.

 _Do you want to hear a joke?_ a voice lisped from somewhere behind Koh’s exposed, rotting teeth.

“Alright,” Korra said robotically, sitting crossed legged on the damp lino.

_A dead man walks into a bar and …_

A choked, wet chuckle rattled through Koh’s ruptured skull.

“Yeah?”

 _… he … and he walks into a bar and_ _asks for a shot. The barman … he says: ‘I think you’ve had enough!’_

Korra frowned. She couldn’t find the bottle.

_Do you get it?_

“I don’t get it,” she confessed, getting to her feet.

 _Neither do I,_ Koh admitted, his voice rasping through his frozen, mutilated face. _Can you scratch my nose? I can’t move my arms. I must be dead drunk! Heh._

Korra didn’t think it wise to tell the dead man that most of his nose was gone.

Taking a step forwards, she heard glass crunch under her bare feet, though she felt nothing. Looking down, she saw a mosaic of shattered glass surrounding her. She was naked except for a grubby pair of sweatpants and gleaming, black blood was trickling like melting snow from a yawning tear in her chest.

 _That looks painful,_ Koh’s voice hissed. Flakes of dried blood fell from his mouth like snowflakes into the sink.

“I can’t feel anything,” Korra shrugged, scratching what was left of the dead man’s nose.

 _That’s much better, thank you_ , Koh rasped.

“You’re welcome.” Korra sat on the edge of the sink and pushed Koh more or less upright as though he were a drunk scarecrow. She took a gulp of the rum.

Reaching up from beneath the peeling lino, sinewy vines wound tightly around Koh’s ankles like demonic arms pulling him down into hellfire and sulphur. Blind tendrils clawed their way out of Koh’s milky eyes, out of his twisted mouth. Unfurling slowly in the flickering halogen light, the tendrils ate away at Koh’s grey, exsanguinated flesh.

“What should I do?” Korra asked, either oblivious or unconcerned.

As if in answer, a neon-blue butterfly – wrinkled wings drying in the cool, crisp air – clambered out of Koh’s mouth. Leaving the carcass behind like an empty pupa, the flickering butterfly fluttered up to – and collided with – the bathroom light, then disappeared inside the glistening wound in Korra’s chest.

Frowning, Korra touched the raw, crimson tear in her flesh which began unfurling slowly like a flower beneath her fingers, revealing her empty ribcage beneath. An arterial web of bloody vines spread through her skeleton, and flickering blue butterflies lapped up the last few droplets of blood still running down her stomach. Stars glinted in the darkness of her empty chest.

“Where’s my heart?” Korra asked, perplexed, reaching inside herself.

 _In bed with you,_ Koh whispered, wearing Asami’s face. _Dying._

**WHO KILLED THE FACE STEALER?**

PART II

 

Korra jolted awake, painfully.

It was a while before her vision cleared and the nightmare faded. She touched her naked chest curiously, though she no longer remembered why.

She was sitting in bed – mouth open, dry tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She was cradling her heart in her lap; Asami had fallen asleep, her head on Korra’s thigh, wrapped in thick, woollen blankets. She had barely been able to keep the painkillers down, and Korra suspected that it was exhaustion rather than opiates that had lulled her to sleep. For the last hour before she too had fallen asleep, Korra had run her fingers through Asami’s matted hair, carefully combing out the flakes of rust-brown dried blood.

Like the bloody skin of a slaughtered animal, reeking of fear and blood, Asami’s silky dress lay discarded on the floor. Korra looked at it sadly through the last vestiges of her hangover.

The panic had been bubbling away vigorously since she had found Asami vomiting her guts up on the kitchen floor. Now, the panic felt like it had eaten away her stomach and left a great, limitless void inside her. She was almost relieved.

Careful, reverent fingers traced Asami’s darkly pallid face. Her skin was cold to Korra’s touch. Her cheeks were hollow, her cheekbones almost tearing through her skin like milk teeth through a child’s gums. The bruise-purple flesh around her eyes was raw, pulled tight over her feverishly moving pupils.

Shifting under Asami, careful not to wake her, Korra moved so that she lay next to her under the blanket, a tattooed arm around her waist. Feeling the faint heat of Asami’s naked skin against hers made Korra smile for a moment. Asami’s hip dug into Korra’s arm. Wriggling deeper under the warm embrace of the blanket, Korra rested her forehead between Asami’s shoulder blades. Hot tears and snot welled up in the darkness beneath the blanket where no one could see. Korra sobbed silently, painfully, saturating the bedsheet with her tears and spittle. Pulling Asami closer, teeth clenched to stifle the soundless screams, Korra almost dug her chewed fingernails into Asami’s sweat-slick skin. A shiver running through her body, Korra relaxed her grasp on Asami and breathed a deep sigh, the heady smell of fur, wool, and Asami soothing the pain.

Korra’s hand traced the curve of Asami’s stomach – now rather unfamiliar to Korra, the taught rubber band muscles closer to the surface – until her hand was over her chest, rising and falling shallowly. The heartbeat beneath her fingers was unfamiliar too: erratic, strained.

Like a butterfly in her chest.

Planting a row of tear-stained kisses along a shoulder, Korra let her hand glide down to its usual place while they slept, atop Asami’s thigh, a finger’s breadth from the knot of coarse hair below her stomach.  Still-warm, congealing blood welcomed her tender hand home. She kept her hand where it was, swallowing the sinking feeling in her throat.

Whispering sweet, unheard nothings, Korra held Asami tightly and tried to make sense of everything.

Korra had made a list; she had scrawled it on an age-yellowed flyleaf torn from a battered paperback romance and it was stuck to the fridge. As she lay on her bed, stroking Asami’s hair, she went through each step on her list, one by one.

                Step 1: Incinerate Koh’s body.

                Step 2: Have a shower.

                Step 3: Save Asami.

                Step 4: Live happily ever after. Perhaps get a dog.

Simple, Korra thought. Five easy steps. She could have even crossed Step 2 off the list now, if she had wanted to, and if Koh hadn’t been watching.

Korra had bolted the bedroom door, for the first time in maybe four years. Someone had snuck on to Raava, without anyone knowing. Not even Raava knew. As soon as she had been able to see clearly, Korra had asked her what had happened. But the ship didn’t have a fucking clue. That worried Korra more than almost anything. Raava was almost impenetrable; the ship seemed, almost, to have a mind of its own, letting in only the people she liked. When Korra had found her in the junkyard, she had been the first person onboard in years.

Against all the odds, someone had found their way onboard. Not only that, they had executed a psychotic murderer in the bathroom, and left without leaving a trace.

With a shudder, Korra wondered whether they _had_ left the ship. The old smuggling ship was riddled with hidden passages and compartments.

Korra decided to add another few steps to her list.

                Step 7: Make sure the killer left. If they didn’t … well, shit. If they did, go to Step 7.

                Step 8: Decide if I want to find the killer.

                Step 9: If Yes, find them. If No … I dunno, give Asami a hug and go back to Step 5.

Perhaps, Korra thought, digging dried blood and bile out from under a fingernail, perhaps a flow chart would have been better than a list.

Grinding her teeth, Korra rolled over, shielding her eyes behind her arm.

“Get up,” she growled to herself. “Get the fuck up, you piece of shit. Get up. Get up. Get the fuck up.”

Sitting up reluctantly, Korra cursed herself for drinking so much the night before. She felt like she had marbles rolling around in her skull. Pinching the bridge of her nose and swearing under her breath, she willed her hangover away.

A semblance of normalcy restored, or at least imitated, Korra kissed Asami’s cheek and pulled the rugs and fur blankets up over her thin shoulders. Sighing deeply, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, pushed herself up, and picked her way carefully through the various and almost geological strata of laundry, bottles, food wrappers and books.

Her hand hovered over the door handle and, her stomach tying itself in knots, she couldn’t quite bring herself to open the door. She listened, trying to swallow the pounding in her ears. She ground her teeth, took a deep breath, and unlocked the door.

She opened the door a crack and, still holding her breath, realised she was very naked.

Surprising herself, Korra started laughing. It wasn’t a loud laugh and it died almost as soon as it began, but it did her good. Wiping her eyes, Korra pulled on a thick pullover, dungarees, and very little else: none of the nearby underwear looked particularly healthy.

Finally, she put her headphones on and began ferreting through the mess in her room, looking for something suitably upbeat to listen to. Aang’s doowop mixtape seemed good enough. She pressed play then sped through the first few sings until she got to The Flamingos.

She grinned to herself as the first few chords of _I Only Have Eyes for You_ played and, with a last, aching look at the Asami-shaped pile of blankets and rugs, Korra tiptoed across the cold floor to the kitchen. Trying not to look at the bloody vomit, Korra grabbed a pair of washing-up gloves and legged it to the bathroom.

Standing outside the bathroom door, Korra pulled on the gloves and shook the now too long hair out of her eyes. Every groan and creak of the ship sent ice through her veins as she stood staring at the closed bathroom door. The constant dripping of condensation that echoed throughout the ship, the dripping she had grown oblivious to years ago, was suddenly deafening. The cold she never normally noticed burnt her bare skin. The dead body was barely three feet from her, separated by a thin plastic door.

This wasn’t the first dead body she had ever seen, she reminded herself. This wasn’t even the goriest of dead bodies she’d seen this year.

She rolled her shoulders, wiped her nose on the back of a rubber gloved hand, and slid the door open.

“Oh great,” Korra groaned, suddenly envious of the gaping hole in Koh’s forehead. “He’s shit himself.”

The smell was overpowering. Korra had to hold her breath just to cross the threshold.

The shower curtain was lying torn and crumpled on the floor. Koh was still sitting on the toilet where she had last seen him. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but she found herself looking for vines pushing up through the lino, however, the only plant-life to see was the mould in the shower curtain’s folds. Korra realised that getting rid of the body was the least of her problems – this bathroom had needed an intensive clean even before the body’s bowels evacuated.

After splashing bleach all over Koh until her throat was burning and her eyes streaming, Korra spread the torn curtain across the floor, tipped Koh off the toilet, and rolled him up. Koh’s body had grown stiff but his body was old and frail so she had no trouble lifting him over her shoulder and carrying him out of the bathroom.

She was in the cargo hold, halfway to the incinerator, when a thought crossed her mind. Letting Koh’s body drop to the floor with a wet thud, she pulled off her rubber gloves. Korra rubbed her sore shoulder and fished in her pocket for a cigarette. Her pockets were empty so she sat on a plastic crate, chewing a thumbnail. The cogs in her head were rusty, but they were turning.

“Raava,” she said eventually to the ship, taking her headphones off and pausing Dion & The Belmonts.

“ _Yes, Korra,_ ” the ship replied, her voice crackling from a speaker somewhere overhead.

“Could you contact … shit, what was his name? … that guy we met on Azulon. The bounty hunter.”

“ _One moment, Korra._ _Encryption may take some time._ ”

Korra began work on her other thumb, gnawing anxiously while accelerated radio waves bounced from satellite to satellite across the galaxy.

“ _There’ll be a few minutess delay. There’s a lot of interference,_ ” Raava apologised.

“No problem,” Korra sighed. “Hey, mate,” she said loudly. “It’s Korra. We … uh … we met on Azulon.”

About two minutes later, the bounty hunter’s reply echoed through the hold.

“Korra! Shit, dude! It’s been years! Haven’t seen you since that fucker with six fingers. How are you and Mako?” He sounded ill, Korra thought. He’d smoked too much, she remembered.

“I’ve been better. Look, I was wondering something and I figured, if anyone knew the answer, you would.”

A few minutes of silence.

“Sure!”

“You know who Koh the face stealer is?”

Two minutes of silence.

“Was, you mean.”

“Whatever. Do you know how much the bounty is on him?”

After the brief silence: “He died like twenty years ago, Korra.”

“He was wanted dead or alive.”

Silence.

“Yeah, twenty years ago,” he laughed.

“Well, what was the reward for him dead?”

Silence.

“Korra, he’s dead. I just looked it up. He died in a whorehouse in Ba Sing Se. Aneurysm.”

“He was the fucking face stealer! How can anyone be sure it was even him?”

Silence. This time, Korra’s old friend didn’t reply.

“Okay. And what was the reward?” Korra asked, suddenly very tired.

Silence.

“I don’t know. A shit ton probably! But, Korra, look …” She heard him cough violently and swear under his breath. “Whatever shit you’re in, whatever you’re trying to do …” He sighed. “Good luck.”

Silence.

“Korra?”

“Thanks, mate,” Korra sighed. “Raava, hang up, please.”

The speaker somewhere in the shadows overhead went dead.

Korra’s eyes began to blur and her throat grew tight.

“Raava,” she whispered, holding back her frustrated tears, “could you try to call the arrow-faced fuck?”

“ _Korra, you have prevented …_ ”

“I know what I said, Raava.” Korra interrupted. “I know. But … if anyone will know anything about Koh it’ll be him so … just call him, please. Please.”

“ _Encrypting now, Korra._ ”

It was at least ten minutes before a very deep, very distorted voice echoed through the dark cargo hold.

“ _Hello? This is …_ ” The voice dissolved into static. Korra swallowed. “ _Hello? Who is this? … of interference. Hello?”_

Silence.

“Tenzin?” Korra said, voice cracking. “Tenzin, it’s me … I …” She couldn’t finish. Her throat was gripped tight by guilt and anger and memories she’d long ago pushed aside.

When the man who had been a father to her so long ago spoke again, his voice was distorted by interference and emotion. 

“ _Korra? Is … you? Korra?”_

This had been a mistake, Korra realised and, Tenzin now shouting her name, she asked Raava to hang up.

Korra hugged her knees and let the uterine darkness of the cargo hold envelop her.

Eventually, sick of feeling sorry for herself, Korra got to her feet and put the headphones back on.

Korra had been planning on burning Koh in the incinerator but, until now, she had hoped that the problem his body presented could have been the solution to her other problem: Asami. She had hoped she could have collected the bounty of Koh and used the money to pay for a new hormone ‘pacemaker’ for Asami. But, as she had suspected, Koh was believed to be dead and the bounty had more than likely been voided. Besides, so much of the old fuck’s face was missing it would have been a struggle to prove it was him anyway.

Still, Korra thought, their may be a use for the corpse at some point.

She altered her mental list:

                Step 1: Freeze Koh’s body.

And, because she had forgotten to put it on before:

                Step 2: Clean the bathroom.

Then, of course, there was:

                Step 3: Have a shower.

                Step 4: Save Asami.

She decided to delete everything after that. Those four things were enough to worry about.

After pulling the gloves back on, Korra began dragging Koh’s body across the floor by his ankles, humming _I Wonder Why_ to herself tunelessly.

Near the back of the hold, hidden behind a tangle of vines and what looked like a cheap, lichen-mottled reproduction of the Venus de Milo, was a large freezer. Having dumped Koh’s body at the foot of the statue, Korra wiped the dust and dead leaves from the dully humming freezer. She pulled a tangle of nascent vines aside, revealing that the lid was padlocked shut. Korra gave the lock a tentative kick. It was flecked with rust … no, flecked was the wrong word. It was rotten with rust. Riddled with rust. Korra was tentative, not because she thought it may not break, but because she was curious why the freezer had been locked in the first place. She had never used the big freezer in the hold, preferring instead to use the smaller one in the kitchen (and most of her perishables were eaten before they got anywhere near the freezers). The fridge must have belonged to Aang’s crew.

All sorts of things were running through her mind: Anthrax, body parts, alien eggs, hibernating catgators. She had heard stories about food left in freezers for too long gaining sentience and wreaking havoc.

Steeling herself, Korra gave the lock another kick and it crumbled like sand. Holding her breath, she lifted the lid. Condensation flooded the air, drifting like smoke around her ankles. Korra sighed in relief as the light inside the freezer flickered on, her breath fogging.

Sitting on a huge, Cronenbergian pile of frozen fish and eels was a handwritten note which read:

_Touch my fish and I’ll throw you out of the airlock!_

__\- Sokka_ _

 Underneath that, in his barely legible scrawl, Aang had written:

_Eat this, Sokka, and WE’LL throw YOU out of the airlock!_

Korra chuckled to herself. Though Aang’s logs had been lost after Raava’s crash, Korra realised that he was not gone. None of the crew was really gone. They had left so much of themselves behind, hidden in Raava’s countless nooks and crannies. She wondered, with a smile, what she and Asami would leave behind. Who, she wondered, would wrap themselves in her furs and blankets? Would they pull their lover close and, for a second, smell Asami’s hair? Perhaps the rusty remains of Asami’s mechanical arm would be found beside the statue of Venus a few decades from now when the next pilot was trying to hide a body. In the next century, maybe a wedding ring would be found down the shower drain.

The stars will drift and fade to embers. The planets will decay. Empires will rise and fall. But the smell of Asami’s hair in the furs or Korra’s handprint on the wall above the bed or her blood staining the pilot’s seat … all of those little hints that we were here, Korra thought, are more beautiful than and will outlast the biggest mountains and the brightest suns. There was a poem about something like this, Korra was sure.

“Was it by Thomas Hardy?” she asked Koh. He didn’t reply. “Well, sulk then. See if I give a shit.”

                ~~Step 1: Freeze Koh’s body.~~

After stuffing Koh into the big, old freezer and slamming the lid shut, Korra climbed back upstairs. In the bathroom, looking down at the fire-damaged gun in the sink, she pinched the bridge of her nose and chewed the inside of her cheek.

“Fuck you right up your arse, Chekhov,” she muttered.

She took the gun to pieces, drowned it all in bleach and dropped it all into the toilet’s cistern.

She wasn’t going to clean the bathroom – she had planned to go back to bed, her mental list be damned – but she thought that, if Asami woke up, she might want a shower. Therefore, putting her headphones and rubber gloves back on, she went to find another bottle of bleach.

                ~~Step 2: Clean the bathroom.~~

Half an hour later, reeking of bleach, Korra tiptoed back into her bedroom. She was clutching a cup of green tea, staring threateningly at it, daring it to spill.

From under the pile of furs and rugs, Asami groaned.

“I think I’m dead.”

“If you do die, shit head,” Korra said, sitting on the edge of the bed, “I’ll drag you out of heaven myself.”

“Mmm,” Asami murmured, rolling over and smiling at Korra. Her eyes were red-rimmed and raw and her dry lips were cracked and grey. “I must be dead.”

“Because I’m an angel?”

“No,” Asami smiled. “Because you smell like hell.”

“It’s bleach,” Korra chuckled, leaning down to kiss Asami’s clammy forehead and only spilling a little of the tea. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit.”

“Yeah.”

“A slight improvement over last night.”

“Good. Tea?”

“Spirits, no.”

“Shower?” Korra asked, setting the cup of tea on a shelf above the bed.

“Is …” Asami swallowed dryly, “is _he_ still there?”

“No. I put him in a deep freeze in the hold. Cleaned up too. Hence the bleach.”

“Then, yes, I would fucking love a shower.”

Korra carried Asami to the bathroom like a bride in furs. Asami smiled up at Korra as she carried her, what looked like a deep sadness in her sleep-encrusted eyes. Korra was going to say something like _I love you, Asami_ but she realised she didn’t need to. Asami knew. Sometimes, Korra decided, trying to put something as powerful and amorphous and … she ran out of words. Language is limited and limiting. She loved her. She was loved by her. Words had nothing to do with it.

Instead of saying _I love you, Asami_ , Korra placed a tender kiss on Asami’s forehead and slid the bathroom door open.

While Korra waited for the shower to warm up, Asami leant against the sink, still bundled in blankets, shivering. The furs had slipped off her right shoulder, revealing the bloom of scar tissue. The melted, burnt flesh of her right shoulder seemed almost scarlet beside Asami’s ash-pale skin.  

Clutching the blankets with shaking fingers, Asami whispered, “What are we going to do, Korra?”

Korra, satisfied that the water was warm enough, ran her wet hand through her hair and sighed. “We’re going to have a shower. Everything else can be worried about later. Cool?”

Asami nodded.

As the torn curtain was, at that moment, enveloping Koh’s body in the freezer, water was slowly spreading across the bathroom floor and filling the air with a fine mist of droplets.

“I had a weird dream last night,” Korra said, shedding the denim dungarees and the pullover, “I don’t remember much but I think there was a galaxy inside my chest.”

Asami smiled, only half-listening but enjoying the sound of Korra’s voice.

“Come here,” Korra whispered.

Asami looked and smelt like shit, but as Korra peeled the layers of fur away, she felt a faint fluttered in the hollow of her chest and her hands quivered slightly. She smiled, pleasantly surprised that, after all this time, she still felt a semblance of that nervous excitement and reverence she had felt back in the prison. She remembered how her stomach had twisted itself into knots that first morning in the showers as Asami had paraded around – probably for Korra’s benefit – and how her skin had electrified at Asami’s touch as she cut her hair. Shedding the furs, revealing Asami’s almost luminously pallid skin inch-by-inch, Korra’s breathing shallowed and her skin prickled.

When Asami, now as naked as Korra, leant forward and brushed her lips against Korra’s, a finger under Korra’s chin, Korra felt as though her breath had caught fire in her chest. Suppressing tears, Korra hugged her tightly, Asami’s small breasts, ribs and narrow hips pressing into her.

Wiping her eyes – Asami was kind enough to pretend not to notice Korra’s tears – Korra led Asami by the hand into the shower, splashing through the puddles of water covering the lino.

She sat cross legged before Asami, water cascading over her fitfully, and filled her cupped hand with shampoo.

“Because you’ve got hairy feet,” Korra grinned, looking up at Asami.

She looked suddenly very tired and very pale, her now-sodden hair plastered over her shoulders. She managed, though, to tell Korra to Fuck off.

Korra had used the washcloth to mop up the blood and vomit from the bathroom floor, so she washed Asami with her bare hands. She worked quickly, afraid Asami might pass out. She washed Asami’s feet and up her shins. When she reached Asami’s blood-stained thighs, she rose to her knees. Kissing Asami’s stomach softly, she washed the blood from between Asami’s legs with gentle hands. She felt Asami quiver involuntarily beneath her hands.

Getting to her feet, Korra poured more shampoo into her hands. She turned Asami around gently so that she was facing the spluttering showerhead. Standing behind her, Korra put her arms around Asami, placed her lips against her shoulder and massaged her taught, hollow stomach. When she reached Asami’s breasts, Asami turned around to face Korra. Water dribbled from Asami’s nose and her parted lips. As she washed the blood from between Asami’s legs and the vomit from her chest and the snot from her face, Korra felt like Pygmalion sculpting a goddess from stone. The dried blood and bile washed from her chest, the marble-carved goddess placed her one hand on Korra’s cheek, her long fingers on the pulse in her neck, and pulled her close. She kissed her chastely but deeply.

As though the kiss had left her breathless, Asami’s knees gave way under her and she knelt before Korra, her forehead pressed against the pit of Korra’s stomach. Korra sank to her knees and enveloped Asami in her arms, one hand between her shoulder blades, the other running through Asami’s hair. The shower and the tears blinded her.

                ~~Step 3: Have a shower.~~

Now she just had to save Asami.

Afterwards, Korra patted Asami dry with a towel and wrapped her up in the furs again. For some reason, covering Asami’s still-damp, heat-reddened body in the furs was more … perhaps sensual was the word … than when she had removed them. Asami sat on the toilet where, only a few hours ago, Koh had sat. Sitting on the edge of the sink, Korra brushed Asami’s wet hair and tied it into a loose knot.

Korra knelt before her Venus in furs, naked, resting her head in her lap. Had the tragic lovers from mythology knelt before their patron gods and goddesses in the same way, Korra wondered, nearly consumed by love and pain?

Korra’s skin prickled as it slowly dried and she felt half-drunk on the heady scent of soap and fur and Asami. She may have stayed like that, a supplicant at the feet of her all too mortal goddess, for hours. Asami, however, cleared her throat, and whispered something.

“Huh?” Korra asked, looking up, her hair in her eyes.

“Could I borrow a tampon?”

“Sure.”

Halfway through pulling on the pullover and dungarees, Korra helped Asami to her feet.

“You know how to put it in?”

“Korra,” Asami grinned wearily, “I have three engineering PhDs.”

“I’ll give you a hand.”

“Oh, thank you!”

“Y’know,” Korra said, now dressed, “I think there’s a tub of shea butter around here somewhere. Nothing like shea butter to make you feel better.”

Upstairs, on the floor beside the pilot’s seat in the cockpit, smelling pleasantly of shea butter and wrapped in furs, Korra and Asami watched Ilion’s many cranes and winches dancing through the air around them as ships docked and undocked. They drifted pleasantly between dream and reality.

“Asami?” Korra asked, entangled in Asami’s naked limbs beneath the furs. “You still awake?”

“Yeah.”

“What are we going to do?”

Asami didn’t reply for a while and Korra nipped her earlobe.

“I don’t know,” Asami admitted, batting Korra’s mouth away from her ear.

“We need money, don’t we?” Korra chewed a thumbnail. “I’d thought about claiming the bounty on Koh but he’s been officially dead for decades.”

“He seemed pretty alive to me,” Asami muttered. “I mean … Well. He seemed pretty _recently dead_ to me. I don’t understand why he was killed here. On Raava.”

“I think …” Korra had tried not to think about it. “I think maybe … someone was sending us a message. Or … protecting us, maybe. I don’t know.”

They were silent for a while, listening to each other’s breathing as though they’d never hear it again.

“Scavenging?” Asami suggested. “Places like this, places like Ilion, are always in need of raw material.”

“We …” Korra couldn’t finish her thought. Asami needed surgery to remove the malfunctioning machinery in her and, if they couldn’t find a replacement, she would have to inject herself with hormones. The medical bills would be astronomical. Crippling.

“If I die …” Asami whispered.

“Shut up,” Korra growled, not unkindly.

“Korra, seriously, if …”

“Asami. I’m serious. Shut up.”

Asami leant her head against Korra’s chest, digging her fingers into the woollen pullover.

“Smuggling?” Asami suggested.

“Maybe.” Korra smiled. “Always liked bootlegger films.”

“Did you know, during prohibition in the 1920s,” Asami frowned, “… or, was it 1820s? … anyway, for every one male bootlegger, there were like five female bootleggers. They just didn’t have any big shootouts or rat on each other.”

“That’s pretty cool. Raava used to be a smuggling ship.”

Asami didn’t reply because, Korra realised, they were no longer alone.

Like a half-frozen marionette, Koh’s ashen body stood in the doorway to the cockpit; tangled vines hung from the piping overhead and clutched at Koh’s twisted limbs, wound their way out of his mouth, and burrowed into his flesh like hungry worms. It was difficult to tell where flesh ended and flora began. Koh had only been dead about a day and he’d been refrigerated for several hours; despite this, Koh’s body was riddled with small white blooms of fungi and a mottled film of milky-grey lichen.

A dry coughing noise rattled in his throat and a weak blue light trickled out of his mouth and headwound. The vines twitched and twisted and Koh’s thin, rigor mortised arm jerked and spasmed until it was reaching limply towards Korra and Asami.

Manipulating the stiff jaw, the vines clawing out of Koh’s mouth cracked the old, brittle bones like kindling.

A single blue butterfly fluttered out of Koh’s blind third eye as a stifled voice echoed through the cockpit. It was not even really a voice. It was more a series of gurgles and groans imitating human speech as though something were wriggling in Koh’s throat. After a while, as though growing used to the concept of speech, a voice lisped from somewhere between Koh’s half-flayed lips.

“ _We are sorry … this was the …  only way.”_

“Koh?” Korra asked, barely able to form words.

“ _No … we are … wearing this face_ …”

A dry, desiccated cough shook Koh’s body. Chunks of lung and black bile spattered across the floor.

“Who’s … we?” Korra asked, her skin awash with a cold sweat.

Seeming to ignore Korra, the puppeteered corpse leant closer to Asami. Neither she nor Korra could move. The sinewy vines around Koh’s twig-like arm twisted and his arthritic, tattooed fingers brushed Asami’s hollow cheek. Korra could feel the shudder wracking Asami’s body.

“ _You are fading_ ,” the voice in Koh’s throat rattled.

“Yes,” Asami murmured.

“ _Sacrifice …_ ” the voice rasped, “ _… is an exchange_.”

“I …” Asami croaked. Before she could finish her thought, Koh’s clenched jaw flung open and a bright blue light poured into the dark cockpit.

What happened next could, perhaps, be best described as the fabric of time and space tearing and folding in on itself.

However, to Korra, it seemed as though Asami had simply dissolved into a swarm of glowing blue butterflies. She stared in disbelief at the fading butterflies where, a second before, Asami had sat wrapped in furs. Numbly, she looked at her empty hand that had been clutching Asami’s arm.

“Asami?” she whispered, quietly.

Silence.

Korra waited, expecting to wake up beside Asami again.

As the butterflies faded, the half-frozen corpse fell to the floor, flakes of ice and lichen fluttering through the air.

“Asami?” she shouted, tears welling up in her eyes and panic clenching her throat. “Asami!”

Silence.

“ASAMI!”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If DiMartino and Konietzko can do a clip show chapter, so can I.

**WHO KILLED THE FACE STEALER?**

PART III

 

Korra smiled and Asami’s heart melted. Despite the dim light, Asami could see the faint trails of salt down Korra’s cheeks. The smile was an attempt to distract from her puffy eyes and dried tears. Asami knew the smile well. She had developed it at a very early age when she was beginning to understand she was not like the other boys she knew, and she had perfected the smile after her mother’s death. It was that smile – the first hint of herself reflected in Korra – that first made her wonder whether she’d end up loving her cellmate.

Helping her up, the klaxon still echoing in their ears, Asami felt a pang of sympathy for her. Her mouth was swollen and raw and a purple bruise had spread along her jaw and across the bridge of her broken nose. Her feet were bare and her breath still smelt vaguely of stomach acid.

“What’s happening?” Korra mumbled, wiping the salt from her cheeks under the guise of pushing her hair out of her eyes.

“Inspection,” Asami said, tidying Korra’s bed. The pillow was still damp. “If they’re in a good mood, they’ll just check we’re in here. If not, they’ll make a bit of a mess. You’re new so they’re probably gonna try to intimidate you. Whatever they do, just stand still and stare at that stain up there.” Asami pointed a metal finger up at a large bloom of rust that had been spreading across the ceiling for the last few months.

As it happened, the bruised guards who walked past the cell made a big show of not making eye contact with Korra. Asami grinned as they walked past and wanted desperately to squeeze Korra’s hand. Instead, she chewed her thumbnail and smirked.

When the guards had walked the entire row of cells, the gleaming barrier dissolved and the echoing sound of voices and shouts and yawns filled the vault-like cell block.

“You need to borrow a toothbrush?” Asami asked, offering one to Korra. “It’s clean,” she added.

“Thanks,” Korra said, clearly trying to sound gruff, but she was obviously grateful.

“No problem.”

Clutching the toothbrush like a knife, Korra followed Asami to the communal bathroom.

In the harshly lit bathroom, Asami noticed Korra’s tattoo for the first time: an intricately patterned dragon writhing from Korra’s shoulder to her wrist. She wondered, then, if she hadn’t noticed the tattoo, had Korra noticed the mechanical arm yet?

Asami swallowed and stuck her metal hand into her pocket.

“I’m … I’m going to have a shower,” Asami said.

“Okay,” Korra grunted before immediately mellowing. She wasn’t very good at not making friends. “Can I have the toothpaste?”

Asami tossed it to her, placed her bag of improvised makeup in a sink, and leapt into a shower cubicle before anyone else could claim it. Safe behind the shower curtain, she breathed a deep sigh of relief and ran her metal fingers through her hair. She laughed quietly to herself and had to bite her lip to stop. She felt like a fucking kid again.

She tore her clothes off and turned on the shower, forgetting that the chances of there being hot water were miniscule. The cold water took her breath away and she clenched her fists tightly. Looking down to keep the water out of her eyes, she began assessing her body critically: her breasts were too small and erratically freckled; her hips were narrow and boyish; her thighs were fat and a dark shadow of hair was climbing her shins. Compared to Korra, Asami felt pale and lanky and androgynous.

She ran her tongue over her teeth and, sick of feeling sorry for herself and pushing down the toxic image of herself, she tipped her head back and let the cold, chemical-laced water wash over her. The longer she stayed like that, the taller she stood, the more relaxed her shoulders grew, and the wider her smile spread.

As she turned the shower off, she heard Korra laugh: “I thought everyone in prison was innocent!”

She heard Kai say something as she wiped the water from her eyes.

“Do I get a medal?” she heard Korra laugh as she swept the shower curtain aside.

As she stepped out of the cubicle – water running down her body, hair clinging like seaweed to her shoulders, soapy puddles spreading around her – Asami pictured herself as Clytaemnestra: head held high, soaked by her husband’s bathwater, she clutched an imaginary axe.

She felt Korra’s eyes wander over her. Without meaning to, she shivered. This had been a mistake. Why did she leave her clothes in the shower? Was her ego really so fragile she had to parade in front of Korra like this? Was she trying to impress Korra, disarm her, prove she didn’t care? Asami couldn’t tell, but Korra didn’t seem to be able to take her eyes off her, so she relished the moment.

“I see you’ve met Kai,” Asami said. “Kai’s the guy who can get you things.”

Tying her hair into a loose, sodden bun, Asami smiled – Korra was almost drooling. It took a lot of effort not to blush and leap back into her jumpsuit.

When Kai had gone, Asami took the unsmoked, half-burnt cigarette from Korra’s hand, their fingers brushing for a second. Struggling not to cough, Asami blew the acrid smoke out of her nostrils.

“How you feeling, sweetie?” Asami asked, cringing when she said ‘sweetie’. She reached out to touch Korra’s shoulder. She stopped herself, unwilling to touch Korra with her metal fingers. Her recently won self-confidence wavered but, to her relief, Korra spluttered that she needed a shower and vanished into a cubicle. The sound of rushing water and indignant plumbing started up almost immediately.

Finishing the cigarette, Asami collected her clothes from the cubicle where she had left them. She pulled on her vest and underwear and stepped into her jumpsuit. She pulled the zip up to her stomach then, checking that she was alone, she reached her metal hand into the orange overalls, into her underwear. Though her mechanical fingers were cold and numb, she knew she was hot and wet down there. Her breath caught in her throat as a metal finger sank slowly inside her.

Suddenly overcome by paranoid self-consciousness, Asami zipped her jumpsuit up to her throat and coughed theatrically as she arranged her makeup around the sink.

When she had finished applying her makeup, she looked in the mirror but barely recognised her reflection. The eye shadow had made her eyes seem bruised and sunken. The candy-flavoured lipstick had made her lips pale and cracked and her cheeks looked hollow. A faint scar bisected her left eyebrow and ran down under her eye like a tear.

Her reality flickered, or perhaps it was the poorly wired fluorescent lights overhead.

In the sputtering half-light, the cracked glass rippled like water and a hand reached out through the mirror. Asami raised an eyebrow. She wasn’t scared, which puzzled her. The hand’s fingernails were long and black with soil. The paper-thin skin was grey and leaf-like. Like a fish tangled in netting and fishing lines, the hand was wrapped in taught, sinuous vines.

A wave of dreamlike acceptance washing over her, the chlorophyll-stained fingers wrapped tightly around her throat. Her scarlet, sticky lips parted and a faint choked whisper was all she could force out. Slowly, inexorably, she was pulled through the toothpaste-spattered mirror.

Liquid glass and fluid reality filled

her lungs, crystallised

in her veins, then

shattered.

 

She couldn’t breathe.

Asami felt like she was drowning. The tears wouldn’t come. They were stuck in her throat, choking her. She held her dad’s big, warm hand as tightly as she could. He squeezed back gently.

It was too sunny. It should have been raining, Asami thought. The sky should have been charcoal-grey and the rain should have pummelled the ground, turning it to mud and leaching the warmth from her bones.

Instead, the sky was clear and blue with only the faintest wisps of cirrus clouds catching the light. The sunlight, bright and unforgiving, hurt her eyes. She could feel the sweat running down her back and making her blouse cling to her. Her black clothes and the big coat a family friend had lent her were more suited to the thunderstorm she so desperately wanted.

The black woollen skirt was the first one her mother had made her. Thistle down clung to its hem and she brushed at it angrily.

Just as the tears began to well up, her dad picked her up. She wrapped her arms around his thick neck and buried her face in his necktie. She could smell his cologne and moustache wax and the faint vestiges of cigar smoke even though he had stopped smoking almost a year ago. She wondered how long it would be before she forgot her mother’s smell.

“She’s in a better place,” her father whispered, his voice rumbling through Asami.

Asami couldn’t articulate why this angered her so much. All she could say was: “I hate you.” She didn’t mean it, and her father knew that, but she was afraid she’d hurt him. She hugged him tighter and tried to apologise, but her voice got all tangled up in her throat.

“I know,” her dad whispered as her mother’s coffin was lowered slowly into the earth.

Asami didn’t watch.  She looked up into the sky, willing it to rain.

Suddenly, she heard rain drumming

and cold water running

down her back.

 

“Am I hurting you?” Asami murmured, her nose brushing Korra’s.

Soap and ammonia-tainted recycled water stung her eyes. Well, that’s what she told herself. It may well have been emotion stinging her eyes. Before she could find out if she was going to cry, she pinned Korra to the side of the shower stall.

Korra seemed genuinely delighted and Asami’s stomach twisted itself into a veritable Gordian Knot of emotion.

Asami ground her hips against Korra’s. Korra stood on her tiptoes (she’s so adorably short, Asami thought) and arched her back. Asami grasped the edge of the stall with her cybernetic hand. She let her other hand slide down from Korra’s cheek to her neck, feeling her fluttering pulse beneath her gentle fingers. The vestiges of oily soapsuds meant Korra’s body glided like silk beneath Asami’s hand.

Water dripped off the end of Korra’s nose and her eyes were clenched tightly shut. Asami wondered for a second whether Korra were picturing someone else in the shower with her but, when Korra moaned into her mouth and guided Asami’s hand away from her throat and down between her legs, Asami decided she was probably just keeping the soap out of her eyes.

Asami held Korra’s lip between her teeth, pulling gently. She could feel Korra’s hot breath on her lips and, as Korra guided Asami’s fingers inside her, she felt a deeper, more delicious warmth welcome her.

She never wanted this moment to end. She wanted to preserve this moment in amber. But nothing lasts forever.

“So this is why you two missed breakfast!”

As though under water, Kai sounded distant and muted.

Asami froze, looking down at her feet. The soapy water had grown suddenly dark and, reaching up out of the water, vine-draped arms caressed her legs, grasped her ankles. The lithe, almost feminine arms were clothed in pondweed and their strong fingers were flecked with tiny white flowers like jewellery.

She felt the black water rising higher up her legs. Or was she sinking? The gentle grasping hands stroked her stomach and slid up her thighs.

Not quite panicking, Asami reached for Korra but, by then, Asami was chest-deep in the wine-dark water. She could still feel strong arms around her submerged legs and delicate lips brushing her hips and stomach. Above the water, flower-bedecked hands pulled carefully at her hair, cupped her breasts and traced the scars across her hand.

Sinking deeper, green fingers caressed her face and stroked her lips.

She tried to call out to Korra but she seemed completely oblivious to Asami’s plight. As she opened her mouth, thick, black, amniotic water filled her mouth and nose. Had Hylas felt like this when the nymphs pulled him into the water?

Fully submerged in a warm, uterine

darkness, the arms embraced

Asami lovingly.

 

Enveloped in Korra’s strong arms, Asami opened her eyes.

She and Korra hung suspended and weightless in dark water. Sunlight was streaming through the flooded observation deck’s huge windows, turning the water a tarnished, liquid gold. Her lungs and veins were full of the dark water, but she barely noticed.

Korra pulled Asami closer and closer, her fingers woven tightly into her sodden, weightless hair, trailing kisses along her jaw and back to her lips. Asami could barely hear her breathless gasps under the water or the sound of their lips over the blood rushing in her ears.

Sighing, Korra pulled away, bubbles rushing out of her mouth. She placed her forehead against Asami’s chest.

Though the water muffled her voice, Asami heard Korra apologise wearily.

Before she could answer, a faint, echoing _crack_ echoed through the flooded observation deck. Lightning bolts were spreading across the tinted glass. The windows were slowly shattering. Asami took one last, longing look at Korra before the deck ruptured.

Pulled by the cascade of water, Korra was torn from Asami’s arms and flung into the void. Asami screamed but the water in her chest froze solid, stifling her cry.

The observation deck had been torn to pieces. Shards of ice and glass hung as though caught in a spiderweb around her. The twisted, metal floor spun away beneath her, scattering potted plants and boxes as it fell. Asami thought she could see Korra in the distance, falling deeper and deeper into the eternal depths of space.

Asami, however, did not fall. She was tangled in a web of leathery vines and groping weeds beneath the remains of the spiral staircase. Pollen and flecks of grey lichen hung like snow in the punishingly bright sunlight. She struggled desperately but seemed to just get more and more entangled in the vines. She bit and tore, but to no avail. Her metal hand was frozen solid and useless.

She screamed silently until, like glass,

the vines shattered

and Asami

 

 

fell.

 

She fell for eons. And, as she fell, she laughed. She was free at last! More or less.

Korra squeezed Asami’s hand tightly, though she could barely feel it through the thick glove of the spacesuit. She closed her eyes and felt the weightless tears clinging to her eyelashes when she opened them again.

“We fucking did it!” Asami yelled, her breath fogging up the inside of her helmet. She could barely hear herself over the sound of the blood in her ears and her heavy breathing. “Korra! We fucking did it! Even if we die out here, it’d be fucking worth it!”

Asami laughed as Korra raised an eyebrow.

She was still laughing when,

cloaked in fire and falling

like a shooting star,

they plunged

into the

sand.

 

As she struggled to reach the surface, Korra’s hand slipped from hers. Lost and blind beneath the sand, Asami felt the panic filling her chest. She couldn’t breathe. She floundered desperately, the sand pulling her down.

She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. She waited until it was slow and steady, then she opened her eyes again. The little LED lights in her helmet revealed a wall of sand pressing inexorably against the visor. The heat and pressure and claustrophobia were growing unbearable when the smell of dirt and sap filled the suit.

Moss-covered, forest-green hands reached up from inside her spacesuit and covered her face protectively. She heard glass shattering and sand pouring like water.

When the hands dissolved into leaves and cellulose, Asami was staring up at two bright, blood-shot suns. She tried to shield her eyes with her metal hand, but nothing happened. Turning her head, blinking the sand and sunlight out of her eyes, Asami saw her metal arm lying beside her, half-submerged in the sand.

She sighed in relief as a shadow fell across her face, blocking out the suns.

“Korra,” Asami murmured, happily.

A strong hand helped her to her feet. Standing precariously, ankle-deep in sand, Asami pushed the dirty, sweat-slick hair out of her eyes. When the suns’ afterglow had faded, Asami froze. It wasn’t Korra who had helped her up.

Standing before her, floating a few inches above the burning sand, was an old man in a tattered spacesuit. Frozen blood filled the air like smoke and shards of his visor were arranged like a halo around his shattered helmet, gleaming in the sun. A severed lifeline was wrapped tightly around the grey-whiskered man’s throat.

The other half of the cut lifeline was clutched in Asami’s metal hand at her feet.

“Dad,” Asami whispered.

His frozen, milky-grey eyes shed a few snowflakes.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

She tried to reach out to touch his lacerated face.

But her lost hand was half-buried

in the sand

at her

feet.

 

She could still feel it though.

She closed her eyes and clenched her fist. She felt her fingers curl and her muscles contract. It was fuzzy, sure. But she could feel her fingernails digging into her palm.

Opening her eyes, she looked at where she knew her fist was. But there was nothing there. Just over-starched sheets. She had been heavily sedated and she couldn’t sit up properly. She forced her left hand to her bandaged right shoulder. The effort of moving her hand almost sent her spiralling back into unconsciousness.

She took a moment, then, to look around the room. She was still in the Republic. She hadn’t been captured by the Earth Empire. Straining to look out of the window, the sky was stained a dirty sepia colour and ash fell like snow against the windowpane. The battle had left its mark, though Asami guessed by the fact that she wasn’t dead yet that a tentative stalemate had been reached.

Having regained some of her strength, she let her hand slide off her shoulder, down her arm. After only a few inches, her hand fell limply to the bedsheets.

A moment of anger overwhelmed her. Anger at the universe. Anger at her father. Anger at herself. Anger for anger’s sake.

Then, deciding that she had indulged herself for long enough, she let go. She pulled two long, thin vines from her nose, almost retching as they came out of nostrils. She then fumbled for several minutes with the tube running into her hand. Eventually, she managed to loosen it. Gritting her teeth, she slowly pulled the tube out of her flesh. Blood and morphine trickled onto the snow-white bedsheets. The tube lay limply across her knees, its leaves glistening with blood.

Asami knew it wouldn’t be long before the pain overwhelmed her, so she pushed herself up off the pile of pillows. Rubbing her eyes, swallowing the nausea, she swore under her breath. Still swearing, she reached for the beeping heart monitor beside the bed. It was almost a minute before she realised she was reaching out with a hand that was no longer there. She chastised herself for another full minute. She had to accept it. Accept it and adapt.

Grasping the heart monitor with her left hand she pulled it onto the bed. She pried the plastic back off the monitor. Its regular, chirpy beeps descended into a hellish electronic howl before going silent.

“Shut up, HAL,” Asami muttered as she pulled out circuit boards and wires and spread them across the bedsheet.

She looked critically at her little copper and silicon hoard. It wasn’t nearly enough.

Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she got cautiously to her feet. She stood for a second, wobbling, testing her balance. Yelping, her legs gave way under her and she fell to the linoleum floor.

“Fuck!” she groaned.

Accept. Adapt.

She kicked over the metal stand holding the drip, and began crawling across the floor towards the wall-mounted television. It wasn’t easy with one arm and a circulatory system full of morphine. Beneath the television, she tried futilely to hook it with the metal pole. As she kept struggling to manipulate the long shaft of gleaming, slippery stainless steel, she felt a faint burning sensation spreading up her arm and across her shoulder. She ground her teeth until they were almost pulverised in her mouth. Soon, she could bear the pain no more. When she woke up, she decided, she would start taking her mechanical bed apart.

As she faded away into an exhaustion and trauma fuelled fugue, she heard nurses shouting and running. The shock-blurred memory of punching one of them in the nose made her smile.

Wearily, she let her eyes

close.

 

Asami tried desperately not to let her eyes close. If she did, she was sure she wouldn’t wake up again.

She forced her eyes open. There was blood in her eyes and smoke blurring her vision. The cockpit was almost upside down. The windows were shattered and mud was pouring in like treacle. Asami coughed and a thread of bloody saliva crawled up her cheek.

“Raava?” Asami spluttered. If the ship replied, she couldn’t tell: her ears were ringing like a belfry.

She fumbled with the safety harness that was digging into her chest. Her dextrous carbon fibre fingers managed to undo the clasp and she fell from the seat into the mud. Groaning, Asami staggered to her feet, clutching her wrist. It was broken, she was sure.

She’d had worse though. Much worse.

She swept her grey-streaked hair out of her eyes, smearing watery mud across her forehead.

“Raava?” she asked again when her ears had stopped ringing. “Raava, babe, you still there?”

There was no reply and – for the first time in years, for the first time since Korra went missing – Asami began to cry. Snot ran down her face and her sobs wracked her body violently until she was panting breathlessly.

She coughed bloody saliva again and, wiping her mouth, pulled the gun from her belt. Saying a silent goodbye to the ship, she pulled on her long, muddy coat and – almost as an afterthought – she put Korra’s tape player in her pocket and the headphones around her neck. Groggily, she kicked the shattered glass from a window and clambered over a twisted, scorched shutter. It was raining heavily outside and the muddy water came up to her knees.

Enormous, twisted trees rose like mountains around her, relentlessly grinding the ruined, moss-draped skyscrapers to dust. She could barely see the lurid sky: the thick canopy of grey-green leaves overhead blocked out all but the smallest fragments of the aurora writhing above her. A tangled web of vines was spread like a nervous system through the swampy forest. Flies buzzed loudly, almost drowning out the torrential rain falling around her.

She spat into the muddy water.

Earth.

She realised now why the planet was named after dirt.

They might as well have called it Shithole.

Her sodden clothes and hair clung to her skin. She pulled the collar of her coat up though it did little to block out the cold and the damp.

Breathing deeply, she ground her teeth and set her jaw. If this was how she died, she’d do it fighting.

She put the headphones on over her ears and fast-forwarded through the tape until she found what she was looking for. Wading slowly through the mud, humming along to _Forever Young_ , she set off to find her crew.

She pulled a curtain of vines

aside and stepped into

a bright, purple

light.

 

Asami found herself sitting cross legged and naked in a meadow.

She knew, somehow, that she had been falling, and that now she had reached the bottom of the proverbial rabbit hole.

A warm, soft light seemed to suffuse the air itself. She couldn’t quite work out what colour it was. The longer she stared at it, and the closer she got to working out where on the spectrum the light was, the quicker the thought seemed to slip from her grasp and melt away. Glowing flowers swayed and rippled like water and a network of soft, green vines was spread like veins around her. She breathed deeply, strangely calm. A gentle breeze blew through her hair and blue butterflies eddied around her. Her hands were clasped in her lap and …

Wait.

Asami looked down into her lap, perplexed. She had two hands. Two flesh and blood hands.

A voice drifted across the meadow. It was a scratchy but undeniably warm voice. A voice like a favourite sweater. The voice, Asami realised, was singing. It was a song she thought she recognised but, just like the colour saturating the air, she couldn’t name it.

“Leaves from the vine,” the voice sang quietly, far from melodiously but undeniably beautifully, “falling so slow, like fragile tiny shells, drifting in the foam … Little soldier boy, come marching home … Brave soldier boy, comes marching home.”

Asami got stiffly to her feet and looked out across the meadow, curious about who could be singing.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” the voice chuckled.

Asami turned and, standing before her, was a short, fat man in a scorched spacesuit. He was smiling broadly at her, his grey beard making his smile seem even wider. The spacesuit was old. The technology looked decades out of date and, emblazoned on the chest and shoulder of the suit were ornate golden flames. The suit looked like it was manufactured during Ozai’s reign.

Asami liked him instantly, despite the circumstances.

“What?”

He spread his arms wide and his smile wider.

“The Spirit World. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“Huh,” Asami muttered to herself. “I’ve always wanted to know what the Spirit World’s like.”

She was not underwhelmed.

“If you are thirsty, Ms Sato,” the man said, bowing as far as his back and the suit would allow, “I took the liberty of preparing a lovely pot of green tea for you.”

“I … I don’t want a fucking cup of tea!” Asami shouted. She was not angry. Just tired. “I’m sorry. I … I would love a cup of tea.”

“This way then, Ms Sato.”

Asami followed him through the meadow.

As they walked, and with the smallest of gestures, the man sent a cloud of bright blue butterflies flying. They surrounded Asami, melting and flickering until Asami was draped in a luminous, shimmering blue dress.

“I haven’t even introduced myself yet!” he laughed. “My name is, or perhaps _was_ , Iroh.”

“Asami,” Asami muttered.

“I know,” Iroh grinned.

He began telling her how he had once been a renowned general and, though many called him ‘The Dragon of the West’ (West of what exactly, he had never found out), she could call him ‘Uncle Iroh’. Asami told him that ‘just Iroh’ would do.

After a few minutes, Asami plucked up the courage to ask him what she had been wondering since Koh had stroked her cheek.

“Am I dead?” she asked.

“That depends.” Iroh smiled at her, gauging her reaction.

“On what?” Asami asked, a little frustrated.

“On many things.”

“Like?”

“Who you ask. How you ask. Where you ask. Some people,” he grinned, “the Tralfamadorians for example, can see all time simultaneously so they say that we are always alive somewhere in time, even after our death. ‘So it goes,’ they say, instead of mourning the dead.”

Asami frowned.

“That … that’s from _Slaughterhouse-Five_.” Asami scowled at Iroh but he just laughed.

“I knew I liked you,” he wheezed. “You’re not dead. Whether or not you died, however, is another question.”

“Did I die?”

“You body was destroyed,” Iroh said sadly. “You never stopped existing. You simply changed form.”

“And the acid trip I just fell through?”

“Your body is easy and painless to rebuild. Your mind though,” Iroh said, tapping his temple, “that’s another matter. What you just went through was your mind being re-stitched, memory by memory.”

“Some of them weren’t _my_ memories.”

“Not yet.” Iroh frowned as though he had given himself a headache. “You were dragged through space _and_ time.”

“Ah,” Asami said.

They slipped into a comfortable silence as they continued walking.

Iroh knew his way through the alien meadows and forests like the back of his gauntleted hand. Over glowing streams, under writhing vines, through hollow obsidian trees. Everywhere they went, gleaming specks of dust and flickering neon butterflies followed them.

Asami’s perception of time had become malleable, she realised. It was hard for her to process but, as they walked, she became aware that, in another moment, they were sitting at a low table, sipping green tea in the shadow of a huge, twisted tree. To avoid a headache, Asami let herself drift.

Iroh poured her another cup of tea. The cup was sculpted from polished stone and the tea tasted like nothing she had ever known. It tasted like … like _light_. With a hint of jasmine.

When she had emptied the cup, she placed it gently on the table and squared her jaw.

“Did you bring me here?” she asked firmly but not confrontationally.

Iroh finished pouring himself another cup before he answered. After raising the tea to his lips and blowing the steam from it, he met Asami’s gaze.

“No,” he said.

She believed him.

“Why am I here?” Asami felt like a mythical hero, carefully selecting questions to ask a temperamental oracle or spirit.

“The vines brought you here,” Iroh said.

That made sense.

“What did they mean about sacrifice being an exchange?”

Iroh frowned. “I think they’ve been reading Adorno.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter,” He sipped his tea. “They want something from you.”

“What?”

Iroh sighed and put down his cup. He folded his hands in his lap.

“Kuvira is building a weapon,” he said quietly. “She is harvesting vines on Earth and forging them into a weapon. The vines have tried to stay out of the war so far, but Kuvira’s hubris threatens to spread to this realm. They want you to stop her.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because … sacrifice is an exchange. They have something you want.”

“What do I want?”

Iroh was silent.

Asami looked at her right hand. After a moment, she realised what he had meant.

“They can rebuild you,” Iroh said. He spoke measuredly, as though worried he was going to offend her.

“Get rid of it.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Make them get rid of this fucking arm. Right now.”

Iroh nodded, understanding in his gleaming eyes.

Her arm dissolved into leaves and tendrils, sap and wood before blowing away in the breeze.

“Thank you,” Asami said, emotionless.

“You were dying when they brought you here,” Iroh said, eyes half closed.

“Yes.” Asami chewed her lip. “And I suppose, here, in the Spirit World, I’m a genetic female too?”

“Yes,” Iroh said.

Asami swallowed her anger.

“I have never been … a genetic female. Asami Sato is not a genetic female.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” she snapped.

Iroh’s jaw twitched. She saw a fire in him beneath the serene exterior.

“More than you realise,” he said stridently.

Asami believed him.

“The vines,” Iroh continued, “lack manners. But they are learning. They don’t entirely understand you but they are striving to.”

“They’re trying to bride me,” Asami said, sounding more angry than she had intended.

“In a way, yes,” Iroh conceded. “But that is fuelled mostly by ignorance. Not malice.”

Asami didn’t say anything, working her tongue angrily over her teeth.

“They will rebuild you on the other side, exactly as you are, but healthy again. And without a dependence on artificial hormones, if that is what you desire.”

“And what happens if, on the other side, I refuse to stop Kuvira? What if I just fail?”

“Nothing,” Iroh said. “You have my word.”

“What happens,” Asami asked, already having made up her mind, “if I refuse to help them right now? Will I be stuck here?”

“That’s up to you. You may stay here, with me.” Iroh failed to hide his smile. Company, Asami guessed, was something he probably wanted desperately. “Or you may return to Korra, _exactly_ as you left her.”

Asami chewed her thumbnail before, cautiously, nodding.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll try to stop Kuvira. I’ll _try_ but I make no promises.”

She got to her feet, the weightless and ethereal butterfly dress shimmering around her.

“Excellent,” Iroh said, though he didn’t smile. He could sense she wasn’t done.

“And you tell those vines, Iroh, that I’m not doing it for them. I’m not even doing it for the universe.” She took a deep breath, wondering for a moment why she was agreeing to this exchange, this sacrifice. “I’m doing this because I’m not fucking done living yet.”

Iroh nodded emphatically and stroked his beard. He seemed to approve.

Asami knelt back down in the luminescent flowers opposite him.

“Can I … Who killed Koh?” she asked. “Was it the vines?”

Iroh shook his head and, for the first time since she had met him, she couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or not.

“I don’t know,” he said apologetically. “The vines, I think, simply took advantage of a sticky situation.”

“I see.” Asami chewed her lip. This whole ‘sticky situation’ wasn’t going to be as neatly wrapped up as she had presumed.

“Are you …” Iroh hesitated, “… in a hurry to get back?”

Asami smiled. The old man was transparent again.

“No,” she said warmly, making herself comfortable. “Besides, the Tralfamadorians would say I’m back already, right?”

Iroh laughed, slapping his thigh.

“I don’t suppose,” he said, leaning across the little table conspiratorially, “you play Pai Sho, do you?”

Asami grinned at the old man and poured herself another cup of tea.  


End file.
